Local and Collaborative Response Rohingya Refugee Camp

After facing extreme violence and persecution by the Myanmar military, over one million Rohingya refugees arrived in Bangladesh in late 2017. This unexpected mass exodus convening in the southern Chittagong province rapidly created the fourth largest “city” in the country. In this conversation the processes undertaken by three Bangladeshi architects,  trained as community architects by Suhailey Farsana and Professor Hasibul Kabir, are discussed and contextualized within the architectural practice of Bangladesh. Saad Mostafava, Fatmi Kwaja, and Rizvi Hassan have worked as architects, or as co-creators, aiding Rohingya communities in exile in Bangladesh in the frontline of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis since 2018. Dean Faud Mallick, current director of the School of Architecture at BRAC University, helps frame the conversation describing their school’s role in producing “community architects”. The work discussed in this panel was recently recognized with the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the most prestigious international prize in Architecture in areas with significant Muslim presence.