Know Thy Neighbor: Urban Regeneration Architecture for Healing Neighborhoods in Dhaka

Know Thy Neighbor is an explorative urban regeneration architecture project that addresses the gradual erosion of community life within dense metropolitan environments. Set in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the proposal examines how rapid urbanization, economic pressures, and changing lifestyles have fragmented social relationships and weakened neighborhood identity. The project responds by reimagining interactive public spaces as catalysts for social healing, cultural exchange, and collective belonging.

Designed by Sumaita Tahseen, the project positions architecture not as an isolated object, but as an active framework that reconnects people to place, memory, and each other.

Understanding the Urban Condition

Dhaka’s neighborhoods are shaped by intense land pressure, informal growth, and a persistent struggle between private development and public life. Over time, streets once used for play, conversation, and communal rituals have been reduced to corridors of movement. This project begins by analyzing the past and present urban scenarios, mapping how socio-cultural practices have shifted and how spatial thresholds between public, semi-public, and private zones have blurred or disappeared.

Through this investigation, the project identifies the loss of interactive spaces as a key contributor to social alienation. Urban regeneration architecture, in this context, becomes a tool to restore everyday encounters rather than introduce monumental interventions.

Big Idea: Regenerating Interaction

The central idea of Know Thy Neighbor is to regenerate neighborhoods by embedding layers of interaction into the urban fabric. Instead of rigid zoning, the proposal introduces fluid transitions: spaces that encourage curiosity, pause, and engagement.

Key strategies include:

• Creating porous edges between buildings and streets
• Designing open-to-air interactive rooms at multiple levels
• Introducing courtyards, verandahs, and shaded walkways
• Allowing informal activities to coexist with structured community events

These elements collectively establish an architecture of invitation rather than exclusion.

Spatial Layers and Human Scale

A defining characteristic of the project is its focus on human-scale urban regeneration architecture. The design carefully modulates spatial intimacy: from large community event areas to small pockets for reading, resting, and conversation. Perforated brick walls, semi-open foyers, and transitional corridors act as filters between public and semi-public realms.

Vehicular movement is pushed to the periphery or basement levels, freeing the ground plane for uninterrupted pedestrian activity. This shift allows streets to function once again as social spaces rather than mere infrastructure.

Programmatic Integration

The masterplan integrates everyday neighborhood functions into a continuous spatial network. Activities such as street vending, outdoor games, cultural gatherings, jogging paths, and informal seating are woven together rather than segregated. Time-sharing strategies allow spaces to transform throughout the day, responding to different age groups and social needs.

This adaptability strengthens the project’s role as a living urban system rather than a static architectural intervention.

Architecture as a Social Framework

Rather than proposing iconic forms, Know Thy Neighbor emphasizes architecture as a social framework. Sections and elevations reveal a careful orchestration of levels, voids, and connections that maintain visual continuity across the site. The built form supports visibility, passive interaction, and collective awareness, essential components for rebuilding trust and familiarity within dense urban neighborhoods.

Material choices, such as brick and shaded structural grids, respond to local climate while reinforcing a sense of familiarity rooted in Dhaka’s architectural language.

Know Thy Neighbor demonstrates how urban regeneration architecture can move beyond redevelopment and toward reconciliation: between people and their city, past and present, private ambition and shared life. By prioritizing interaction, cultural continuity, and human-scaled spaces, the project offers a replicable model for healing neighborhoods in rapidly urbanizing contexts.

In doing so, it reminds us that sustainable cities are not only built through infrastructure, but through everyday human connections nurtured by thoughtful design.