Marisa Aschettino

Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh is growing at an extremely fast rate. As the population increases the cities public spaces are becoming more and more congested. 

 

The problem that stood out to us the most when researching the Farmgate area, in Dhaka, was the congestion. The constant traffic and lack of space for the street vendors and pedestrians became our main priority. 

 

The city of Dhaka has accepted an elevated light rail that will run through the city and we made the design decision to incorporate it in to our scheme. Our first major design move was to remove the vehicular traffic. By moving the vehicular traffic underground we are able to give the space back to the people. 

 

Another aspect that stood out to us was the vendor culture because it plays such an important role in the people of Dhaka's livelihood. We noticed that venders tended to accumulate at edges and in the shade so we added a shading device that maintains a constant line of shade along the edge of pedestrian space. 

 

Farmgate is a very vibrant area with many different programs across the congested street scape. We wanted to create a safe walking area for the pedestrians that connected the area and created a safer environment for the venders to conduct business.