A demountable house by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum has been installed as “a reminder of the precariousness of our existence” at the Vitra Campus in Germany.

Named Khudi Bari, the transportable bamboo structure is the latest addition to furniture brand Vitra‘s headquarters in Weil am Rhein, which is home to landmark buildings by well-known architects including Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry and SANAA.

Marina Tabassum is the latest architect to create a building at the Vitra Campus

Khudi Bari, or Small House, was designed by Tabassum as a response to the mass displacement of people living in Bangladesh due to flooding.

It serves as an affordable and lightweight house that can be built, dismantled, relocated and reconstructed by hand to a different location when its owners are affected by deluges. So far, more than 100 have been built in the South Asian country.

She has installed a Khudi Bari house

Displacement caused by flooding is becoming an increasing threat in Bangladesh due to the melting of Himalayan glaciers being exacerbated by global warming.

Tabassum’s construction of Khudi Bari at the Vitra Campus is hoped to raise awareness of the issue, while also highlighting the disproportionate impact of climate change on the populations least responsible for causing it.

Khudi Bari are lightweight and transportable houses

“The Khudi Bari on the Vitra Campus is a reminder of the precariousness of our existence,” said Tabassum.

‘Bangladesh is home to 700 rivers that are fed by the Himalayan glaciers. Due to global warming, glacier melt is accelerating in the Himalayas and 65 per cent more water is expected to pour into our rivers,” she explained.

“An imbalance in one part of the world affects another,” continued Tabassum. “The people who have had to relocate and live on the sandbanks have a carbon footprint of zero, and yet they are the ones suffering from the climate crisis.”

They have metal-sheet roofs

Similarly to those built in Bangladesh, the Vitra Campus’s Khudi Bari has a lightweight structure formed of bamboo combined with steel joints.

These materials are chosen for being low-cost, lightweight and easily prefabricated in small manufacturing workshops in Bangladesh. They can also be assembled and dismantled by hand, without electricity.

A square frame buried below ground forms its foundation, while a larger version is placed above ground, supporting an upper floor for shelter in sudden flooding. Its frame is enclosed by a sheet-metal gable roof and lightweight screens.

It is designed for families affected by flooding in Bangladesh

The first Khudi Bari structure was built in the capital city Dhaka during the 2020 pandemic. Alongside single houses, the model has also been used to form larger units, such as at the Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhia.

These installations are led by Tabassum’s initiative, called Foundation for Architecture and Community Equity (FACE), which is based in Bangladesh.

Vitra Design Museum’s founder Rolf Fehlbaum said the installation offers insight into “new thinking” at the campus in relation to sustainability.

He said this began with a Garden House conceived by Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane – a rest space for gardeners formed of a material palette of stone, wood and thatch that is deliberately “very different from previous Vitra buildings”.

Bamboo is used for the structure

“We recently built a Garden House conceived by Tsuyoshi Tane, embracing a new thinking on the campus in relation to nature and sustainability,” Fehlbaum explained.

“Marina Tabassum applies the kind of designs we expect from an urban architect to pro-bono initiatives in very challenging conditions, collaborating with communities in remote areas. She is a role model for a socially engaged architectural practice.”

The living area is suspended above ground in case of sudden flooding

Bangladeshi architect Tabassum was recently named on the list of the 100 most influential people of 2024 by Time magazine. In 2021, she was awarded the 2021 Soane Medal in recognition of her “architecture of relevance”.

At the Venice Architecture Biennale, architectural designer Arinjoy Sen depicted different uses of Khudi Bari within a triptych of tapestries that he created with marginalised artisans in Bengal.

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