3rd Prize in Global Category

Organized by Aditya College of Architecture, Mumbai, India

Winner: Antara Talukdar | Rajib Kumar Saha | Protiti Iqbal | Qazi Md. Atikul Islam | Zahidul Islam

This is the THRESHOLD – from where anything can be started or can be terminated! The types of architecture of boundaries may be objective or physical and sometimes it also may be a subjective thing or intangible. This ensures a Connected Community going beyond individualism.

In our every days seeing, some unseen, intangible boundaries also exist. And that is the part on which we all should be actually concern about. Boundaries are always in our mind. Since the beginning of the human civilization Architecture always puts Culture, Religion, and Desire etc. in a form and these aspects bring out Architectural Boundaries. Architecture helps to either strengthen or dissolve these boundaries.
Soul or Marrow is a pure thing. It has no barrier of anything – Having No Culture, No Religion, No Language, and No Discrimination is the quality that take it beyond everything. Barrier within the souls create confliction between people. Unfortunately the truth is, most of the iconic places which is globally accepted by the peoples, denies people’s accessibility of various religion and culture. That physical barrier ends up in a psychological barrier that finally results into some unwanted consequences. The places that witnessed these consequences and also bear historical values are the sites chosen for our design. The concept of this design motivate us to create a module that stands on those places where this boundaries get scopes to be generated by people. It is a flexible module that dissolve the barriers depending on the context. To show that flexibility we placed it in a congestive urban area of Dhaka city where it dissolves the social and cultural barrier of this place. By naming this module ‘Marrow’ we tried to seek attention of the people towards the humanity which is the soul of a peaceful world.

‘Marrow’, A Gathering Space? Prayer Space? A Monument? Or A Place To Find Lost Souls? You might call it a place which can reflect oppress of that dedicated place. ‘What if’ they pray on the same place where the riot took place, beyond any restriction of religion, culture or language? A prayer which has no religion! So why not placing ‘The marrow’ near to The Ram Temple (a conversion form of Babri Mosque) and see or hope what positive results it can bring out? Why not place “The Marrow” near the 9/11 Memorial museum where without any barrier people can mourn, reminisce, pray or show respect with their simple presence to all victims of the begone era. Would you not like to visit an ancient historical site like old St. Peter’s basilica with a sense of attachment with the place rather visiting with a segregated feelings? We can hope a ‘Marrow’ near that basilica can play an important role for making this flawless interaction.

Let the people experience the space we are calling Marrow with an entry of a 10 feet height opening at the beginning, which gradually increase to a height of 17 feet. Water rolling down on both side walls of the ramp leading to that one fire flame burning in the center, surrounded by shallow water symbolizes the Purity of Humankind. From the center we see a ramp going upward, taking people towards the Ocular to let them explore the spirituality of light; some Oculi bringing down the water reflected light and a slit light coming from a corner of a room might be in use for exhibition, reading or even as a meditation space. Even if you feel needless going toward the ocular, can you still see some adults with children roaming around, playing, praying, reading, meditating and sharing spontaneously just around you like we hope to see?