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<p>The ghat was built with brick and concrete by local masons. It was designed with respect for the local topography. </p>

<p>Aerial view of the large public ghat along the Nabaganga river in the city of Jhenaidah.</p>

<p>Urban River Spaces, Jhenaidah, Bangladesh, by Co.Creation.Architects / Khondaker Hasibul Kabir: A community-driven project providing public spaces in a riverine city with 250,000 residents, offering walkways, gardens and cultural facilities, as well as environmental efforts to increase biodiversity along the river.</p>

<p>The area was difficult to access in spite of its central location. The municipality accepted to break paths in several walls in order to make the ghat and the river easily reachable.</p>

<p>The architects surveyed and documented all the trees in the city in order to propose ecologically significant vegetation and enhance the area's biodiversity. All the existing trees on-site were preserved. </p>

<p>The ghat is built on two levels connected by stairs and a ramp.  </p>

<p>Stairs connecting the two levels of the ghat. </p>

<p>The ghat has become a popular place for the local people to exercise, enjoy an evening stroll, meet with friends or simply sit by the river. </p>

<p>Smaller ghats are built to accomodate the daily needs of the local communities who bathe, wash their clothes and fish in the Nabaganga river. </p>

Recent urban expansion in Bangladesh has seen its originally river-facing cities become road- and land-focused, their watercourses reduced to backyards and dumping grounds. One such is Jhenaidah, where architects Khondaker Hasibul Kabir and Suhailey Farzana grew up. Keen to enhance the quality of life here, they moved back from Dhaka in 2015 and instigated a participatory initiative to enable low-income communities to build their own houses, followed by an extensive series of “Co-Creation Workshops” engaging citizens to rethink the city’s public spaces. Putting the resulting visualisations into action has produced the Urban River Spaces, which so far comprise two ghats (steps leading to waterside platforms) plus adjacent walkways and access pathways – reconnecting the city to the river. All visible surfaces are in local brick.

By far the larger of the ghats, the 115-metre-long “public ghat” has two plateaus linked by various stairways and a ramp for the disabled, the lower plateau remaining at least 3.7 metres above the water. People of all ages and backgrounds, including some from nearby towns and villages, regularly come here to walk, sit, meet, or engage in sport, cultural or recreational activities. The upper retaining wall serves on the lower plateau as a vertical surface for public exhibitions, and on the upper one joins with a parapet that meanders around the pre-existing trees – some over a century old – to create semi-enclosed, shaded areas where people can sit facing each other. This ghat can also serve as a two-level auditorium for theatrical performances given on a floating deck or on the opposite riverbank.

The smaller “community ghat” is directly connected to the water’s edge via a few steps. Intended for and used extensively by one of the city’s largest low-income communities, where the majority are Hindu, it caters specifically to their needs in terms of bathing, washing and practising religious rituals, with a changing room and benches provided.

Mobilised by the community’s enthusiasm, Jhenaidah Municipality employed local craftspeople to execute the project, the architects providing pro-bono consultancy services. The mayor reports that representatives of over 50 municipalities have visited to learn from these community engagement programmes.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture

Jhenaidah, Bangladesh

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