Machan_Korail Community Platform
by Paraa
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Project details
Year
2025
Project year
2024
Building area
332 m²
Site area
1,858 m²
Project website
Location
Team credits
Architects
Kazi Arefin,
A S M Khaled Saifullah,
Abdul Kadir,
Farhin Iqbal,
Rabindra Nath Sarker,
Saira Jannat,
S M Kaikobad.
Paraa team
Taranum Nibir,
Ruhul Abdin,
Kazi Arefin,
Abdul Kadir,
Khaled Saifullah,
Rabindra Nath Sarker,
Ayesha Rahman Chowdhury,
Farhin Iqbal,
Sharara Khan,
Saira Jannat,
Fahim Bin Hamid,
Habibur Rahman,
Nasib Ahsan,
Fahim Islam,
Adit Dewan,
S M Kaikobad,
Mahbub Ratan,
Manik Das.
Contributing partners
Gravity Engineers,
Goethe Institute,
Floating University Berlin,
Federal Foreign Office Germany.
Machan is part of the wider Korail: City of Culture initiative, which promotes art and participation as tools for community building. Developed by the Dhaka-based collective Paraa, the project grew from long-term collaboration with residents, youth groups and community leaders. The settlement, home to over 80,000 people, sits beside Dhaka’s affluent neighbourhoods of Banani and Gulshan-Baridhara. Many residents work in waste recycling, street vending or domestic labour for the surrounding city. Korail’s contribution to Dhaka’s cultural life is rarely recognized, but Machan challenges that imbalance by placing creativity, learning and care at the centre of civic life.
The name – Machan, meaning ‘platform’ in Bangla – captures its essence: a structure that supports and connects. It stands at Ershad Maidan, one of Korail’s few open spaces, long used for dumping waste. Paraa worked with local volunteers, students and collaborators including Floating University Berlin to transform the site into a shared stage for expression. Over 60 workshops and residencies shaped the design, bringing together residents and young designers through storytelling, model-making and hands-on construction.
Architecturally, the project reinterprets the traditional Bengali pavilion as a light, permanent structure – robust yet porous, civic yet playful. A simple concrete frame supports two levels designed for openness and flexibility. On the ground floor, two semi-enclosed rooms host workshops, exhibitions and meetings. Large folding doors merge them into one shaded space facing the playground. A wide stair doubles as seating, turning circulation into an amphitheatre for performances and assemblies. The brick-paved ground absorbs heat and is easy to maintain.
The upper level breaks the symmetry, creating varied pockets for use: large steps for sitting, perforated brick enclosures for private activities such as women-led gatherings and open terraces overlooking the field. Light and air flow freely through ventilated brick façades that blur the boundary between inside and outside, turning the building into a mediator between climate and community.
Machan’s restraint is deliberate. There are no enclosed rooms or decorative finishes, only what is essential for durability and comfort. The extended upper plate shades the ground floor, reducing heat gain. Built from locally produced concrete and porous brick, the structure allows natural ventilation throughout the year. Planters and pockets of soil bring greenery, letting residents grow plants and soften the concrete texture. Its simplicity makes it easy to maintain and adaptable for new activities.
The process behind Machan is as significant as its architecture. For Paraa, collaboration is design. The project evolved from years of research and participatory work in Korail, exploring new forms of creative education and co-production. Two ‘critical design school’ residencies paired local youth with architecture students and artists, positioning the settlement itself as a classroom.
When Machan opened in December 2024, it immediately became a gathering point. Children play on the stairs, women’s groups meet in the shaded rooms, and evening classes and performances fill the open air. The building encourages collective ownership – anyone can propose an event or adapt the space. By centring marginalized voices and local leadership, it challenges elitist ideas of who produces culture and how, proving that creativity can thrive with the simplest of means.
The design minimizes embodied energy, uses local materials and introduces greenery to regulate heat and dust. Its permanence – unusual in informal settlements – signals confidence in the community’s right to remain. Machan provides shade, shelter and safety year-round, functioning as both infrastructure and symbol of resilience.
Behind the project stands Paraa, a Dhaka-based research and design studio founded in 2011 by Ruhul Abdin, Kazi Arefin and Abbas Nokhasteh. Conceived as a social enterprise, Paraa combines architectural practice with participatory research and training. Its work spans urban design, exhibitions, film and education but is unified by one goal: to enhance communities through design that foregrounds rights, imagination and collective agency. The studio collaborates with universities and grassroots groups to build what it calls a ‘School of Thought’, where architecture becomes both practice and pedagogy.
Machan_Korail Community Platform stands as a modest yet transformative act of city-making. It shows that when architecture listens closely, even the smallest structure can reshape a place and its people. By reclaiming a neglected field as a space for art, learning and play, Paraa and the residents of Korail have built more than a building: they have built a stage for dignity, creativity and belonging.
The prize money will fund Paraa’s next participatory project in Dhaka: a co-designed built intervention developed with local residents, youth and artists. Through workshops, research and residencies, the project will explore how art, culture and architecture can empower informal settlements. Using local, ecological materials and community craftspeople, the intervention – temporary or permanent – will continue Machan’s legacy as a space of collective creation.
- Information for the project text was provided by Paraa -
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Advisory Committee Statement
‘Machan_Korail Community Platform’ receives the award for Social Engagement for its powerful simplicity and subtle use of architecture, intervening only where truly needed. Built collaboratively with residents of Korail, Machan transforms a former dumping ground into a vibrant cultural centre. The project shows how young, diverse teams can create spaces that are both socially meaningful and architecturally restrained. The result feels like ‘playground architecture’ – open, adaptable and deeply rooted in everyday life. With minimal means, it brings culture to the forefront of community building, challenging elitist assumptions about who produces culture and how. A beautiful and original contribution that gives voice, space and dignity to the people of Korail.