Towards the enlightenment through the deadness : urban renewal in Motijheel commercial area of Dhaka city Motijheel, Dhaka

Abstract

Dhaka city has undergone radical changes in its physical form, not only in its vast territorial expansion, but also through internal physical transformations over the last decades. In the process of urbanization, the physical characteristics of Dhaka city are gradually changing as plots and open spaces have been transformed into building areas, open squares into car parks, low land and water bodies into reclaimed built-up lands, etc. Such unplanned urban fabric creates urban problems in CBD (central business district) zones like motijheel. From the very beginning of our independence, motijheel commercial area has grown as the main central business district (CBD) of Dhaka city because of its rapid pace of commercial development. But, the process of development and growth in this area followed a spontaneous but unplanned manner. As a consequence, this CBD is continuously challenging three major urban problems: congestion, constriction and transparency - which are often considered as factors that necessitate urban regeneration. This thesis mainly focuses on the transparency issue along with another two issues. Here the word transparency is used to portray the solid –void situation that used to take place in time basis in motijheel depending on the work schedule. This particular CBD starts to work very actively from the very beginning of the day but gets to shut down very soon with the closing hour of offices. This is how it begins to create a massive void where a very little vehicular movement and human activity is found at that hour. So, basically the aim of this thesis is to incorporate some necessary functions and programs here and rethink the building-road relationship of this CBD as well to make it vibrant and active simultaneously at night too like other CBD such as kawran bazar.