Shatotto, Ashraf Kaiser Residence.

The busy feet toil hard day and night in the fertile alluvium, feet that anchor the nouka(boat), feet that pedal the rickshaw through the dense streets. Yet some feet find solace in the swimming ponds of Shatotto’s architecture. The feet and the body runs all through the year in the city, but every Eid (biggest festival of Bangladesh), the soul always wants to escape the urban jungle. Where is the belonging? The sense of place or memory? Rich and poor all have houses of concrete and brick in Dhaka. In the same dense settlement, Rafiq Azam’s exposed concrete structures breathes life with the sparrows chirping at day break from the green balconies, the sun casting forth its vibrant shades by the living space.

“Full of merit, yet poetically, man dwells on this earth."
— Martin Heidegger

Of Dwelling: Living.
The world is fast. Urban challenges confront us across the globe. How do we make dwelling from living? A city threatened by sea level rise accompanied by a severe crunch of urban space, Dhaka continues to grow. In such a context of chronic constraints, Rafiq Azam’s buildings create poetry and a dialogue with the city. The Meghna residence at the heart of Dhaka created a dream 10 years ago; now the epicentre of a wave that has influenced several buildings nearby. Materials that were once thought as incomplete have proved to be efficient in the tropical urbanism of Dhaka. The poetry in exposed concrete and brick satiates the aspirations of the growing demand of housing. It acts as a catalyst for functional, contextual and responsive architecture in Dhaka, preserving its core values and evolving continuously.
Born in the delta from the vast plains of mighty rivers, the Bangladesh country landscape is full of poetry and a sense of belonging, the Bengali sentimentalism. And that shaped the traditional spaces which eventually made way to the urban cities in the form of ghatla where people do multifarious activities, the merh, where the neighbourhood sits to chat. Shatotto has been able to create a revolution of meaningful dwelling in the fast moving world like a river that keeps changing its banks. "Shatotto" in Bengali means "Continuity", the continuity of river & life. The continuity of a revolt that architects have initiated in the 21st century.
Creating a friendly climate among the city dwellers by emphasising light, air, sky, and mostly acknowledging the existence of each other by transparency has been one of the prominent ideologies of Shatotto. The glass boundary walls have created a sense of space around them in the many high rise apartments of Shatotto. The fruit trees there tempts a child’s heart to steal a mango or a custard apple. Non orchestrated spaces create a sense of mystery to help the people talk, play, think, and grow. Concepts like "gossaghor"(anger reduction room), "bristighor" (rain room), waiting space near the exit to create a farewell relationship were born out of Rafiq Azam’s longing to fulfil the natural instincts of every Bengali man.
The interventions are based on common sense, rationalizing the spaces, materials and bringing all stakeholders together. Training of workers and working with consultants in a craftsman’s approach has helped Shatotto grow as a master to disseminate design ideas. With increasing complexities of urban networks, Shatotto now aims at public architecture. It seeks to create a dream in the urban mayhem of Dhaka and give to the world a message of design solutions through an architect’s mind and a common man’s soul.