Rizvi Hassan is sensitive as an architect as well as a designer

I left Dhaka and returned to my hometown Jhenaidah several years ago. Here, I’ve been working on building the future of Jhenaidah through an initiative called 'Urban River Spaces'. This project aims to make the city more livable by enhancing the beauty of the Nabaganga river bank—creating walkways, gardens, and spaces for civic and cultural events. Several Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) graduates were involved in the effort. Toward the end of 2017, Rizvi Hassan came to my office with that team and joined one of the projects.

The project was called 'Pond-Side Community Network', which explored how local residents could transform the ponds in their neighborhoods into beautiful, useful spaces—for both people and nature. Rizvi engaged in the local community and, within a week, made remarkable progress on the project.

At that time, he had recently graduated in architecture from BUET and was working at a large firm in Dhaka. I asked him about his goals. From our conversations, I could sense that he was grappling with questions similar to ours—like, should the knowledge and skills we gain in architecture be limited to designing homes and offices for a privileged few? Or should we try to use it in service of the broader public—working with people, alongside them, to create something meaningful?

Later, I came to know that Rizvi had left his job in Dhaka. It seemed the work in Jhenaidah had brought him a sense of peace. In search of that same peace, he traveled to various places and eventually became involved in a Rohingya camp project through BRAC. Collaborating with architect Saad Bin Mostafa, Rizvi began working on several beautiful projects. One of them was "Beyond Survival: A Safe Space for Rohingya Women and Girls", where they built a community centre inside the refugee camp.

The structure looked like a miniature stadium—with a gallery-like section serving as rooms and a small open courtyard in the middle. The house featured a bamboo frame with thatched roofing, and inside, colorful decorative patterns adorned the walls. No one had imagined something so beautiful could be built in a Rohingya camp. Rizvi and his team designed the structure in collaboration with the local people, incorporating the advice, skills, and artistic sense of the local craftsmen into the architecture.

The UK-based newspaper The Guardian published a feature on this project. In 2020, Rizvi received recognition from the United Nations as a 'Real Life Hero'. In 2022, the project received the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Alongside the Rohingya project, our Urban River Spaces initiative also received the Aga Khan Award. While accepting the awards together, we joked with the organisers, saying, “You’ve actually given two awards to one team!”

As a designer, Rizvi Hassan is as sensitive and thoughtful as he is as an architect. He shows a deep affinity for local people, traditions, and materials in his work. To me, he is a complete architect. Like others in his field, he designs houses and buildings, and he also runs an office with Khwaja Fatmi on Elephant Road in Dhaka. But even in those projects, his designs reflect the country’s climate and heritage. He’s not driven by the urge to take on any project just for the sake of it—he seems to hold himself accountable to his own values. He even inspires his clients to adopt that same mindset.

Rizvi has also become a guide for young people interested in public-centric architecture. He is a mentor and a support figure for many younger professionals. He frequently interacts with university students, and many final-year students are influenced by his work in their thesis. He and his team also serve as judges and mentors at various university events.

Rizvi Hassan is a highly skilled individual. From drawing to filmmaking and managing details—he does a lot himself. While doing everything alone doesn’t align with our collaborative philosophy—we prefer team-based work—Rizvi is capable of handling much on his own if he chooses to.
Our hope is that this young architect continues on his path.

*Khondaker Hasibul Kabir, faculty member, Department of Architecture, BRAC University & Co-founder of Co-Creation Architects