CRUNCH: Healing Through Making

What if each of us stepped outside of our comfort zone and paid attention to the environment beyond our boundaries? How can architectural professionals contribute to a balanced living environment as architects and as responsible individuals?

Architect Rizvi Hassan spent five years working with the Rohingya refugees and the surrounding Bangladeshi hosting communities in the Ukhiya-Teknaf area, where people came together to decide, design and build, finding positivity and collaborating to overcome challenges in a crisis. 

The Rohingya people have abundant stories, knowledge and wisdom that create positivity and care. Celebrating building processes together preserves and expands these stories and supports their mental wellbeing while strengthening their identity, culture and values by creating a collective community.

The talk will be followed by responses from Professor Jonathan Saha (Durham University) and chaired by Professor Clare Melhuish (UCL Urban Laboratory).

This event is part of the inaugural CRUNCH Series at The Bartlett School of Architecture, replacing the International Lecture Series. Please note this event is first-come, first-served and is limited capacity. 

Speaker Biographies

Rizvi Hassan is a Bangladeshi architect who has been exploring the role of design professionals in unconventional fields, working in rural areas, flood-prone areas, refugee camps and informal settlements for various communities in Bangladesh. His work features contextual response, local identity, culture and learning through collective making to reflect on the construction process and final spaces. Rizvi has worked with CSF Global (Child Sight Foundation), SAJIDA Foundation, IOM-UN Migration, ICRC and BRAC. He won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2022 and the Architecture Sans Frontières (ASF) Award in 2021. UN-OCHA recognised him in 2020 for his contributions.

Jonathan Saha is a Professor of South Asian History at Durham University. He specialises in the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century colonialism in Southeast Asia, focusing particularly on British Burma. His 2013 monograph, Law, Disorder and the Colonial State, looked at the history of corruption within the colonial state, exploring how the state was experienced and imagined in everyday life. Jonathan recently published his second book, Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar (2021), which explores how British imperialism in Myanmar transformed relationships between humans and animals in the colony.

Clare Melhuish is Professorial Research Fellow in the Anthropology of Built Environments and the Director of UCL Urban Laboratory, where she writes, researches and lectures on urbanism and the built environment. Clare’s work focuses on urban regeneration and urban heritage, exploring postcolonial and decolonial urban contexts. Prior to joining UCL in 2013, Clare was a Visiting Research Fellow in Anthropology at Brunel University. She also worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a series of projects in the geography departments at Open University, King’s College London, Brighton and Sussex Universities, and Queen Mary, University of London.

More information

Image: Courtesy of Rizvi Hassan