Challenges in sustaining resilience in the coastal settlements of south-eastern Bangladesh: Achieving self-sustenance through architectural synthesis

The coastal settlements in Bangladesh experienced recurring tropical cyclones and tidal surges in recent history because of geographical influences and global climate change. Despite improved evacuation management and adequate cyclone shelters patronized by donors, lately resulting in a reduced mortality rate, the property and economic losses were still substantial due to vulnerability of the settlements. As the short-term adaptative approaches such as migrating to the closest cyclone shelters have failed to sustain resilience, comprehensive and inclusive mitigation planning should be implemented to achieve more resilience in the long term. The research aimed to revise the conventional culturally-void concept and propose a prolonged solution by planning a self-sustained model of the cyclone-resilient village for the south-western coastal communities of Bangladesh. Initially, it searched for the identification and analysis of socio-cultural, economic, and environmental challenges in sustaining community resilience and later synthesizing architectural interventions to achieve self-sustenance. The synthesis focused on reducing the vulnerability of the coastal communities by enhancing their preparedness, resistance, and recovery from the prolonged impacts of coastal disasters through designing structurally and environmentally resilient homesteads, defensive landscape plans, and socioeconomic-communal development. The ultimate proposal offers more flexibility in selecting homesteads according to suitable materials, affordability, and profession.

The Symbolic Regionalism on The Architectural Expression Design of Kupang Town-Hall

This study aimed to explain the synthesis design approach of the architectural expression in the Town Hall building of Kupang city. This is necessary due to the need for Town Halls, as public facilities, to reflect technically correct building standards, environment, and the aspects of political symbolism. Kupang Town Hall design uses the roof image expression of the Timor, Flores, and Sumba ethnic architecture in a harmonious composition and this means it is an example of an ethnic architectural synthesis in a modern building which represents a function, meaning, modernity, and local cultural identity. This research employed the social semiotics method to examine the design in relation to the surrounding social life context and the design was found to be produced from the symbolic regionalism approach which involved mixing the architectural images of Timorese, Flores, and Sumba ethnicities to modernize and conserve ethnic architecture and represent the cultural identity of East Nusa Tenggara. This, therefore, means architectural synthesis methods which are established on the symbolic regionalism approach have the potential to be used in designing public facilities in different places of Indonesia to reveal local cultural identities in modern buildings through symbolism based on an ethnic architectural image.

Cultural Center in Kotor Designed by the Architect Zdravko Moslavac

Reconstruction of the Cultural Center in the Old Town of Kotor designed by Zdravko Moslavac represents an artful urban-architectural synthesis of ”the new inside the old”. The analysis of this accomplishment contributes to the overall research and understanding of the creative body of work of the architect Moslavac and of works of Croatian architects in Montenegro, as well as of the ever popular phenomenon of architectural interpolation.