Designing DCC civic center, Gulshan 2, Dhaka

Abstract

Gulshan, a town founded as a planned model town in 1961 with its own Pourashabha while the neighboring Banani Model Town was founded in 1964.Gulshan thana was then found in 1972 and then later absorbed into Dhaka city. The Gulshan city centre only consists of Gulshan, Baridhara and Banani. The Thana of Gulshan also includes the neighborhood of Mohakhali to the southwest. Initially, the town was solely built as a private residential area, however, with time passing by, multiple commercial buildings were constructed in the area to fulfill the needs of the growing population. Gulshan is now a mix of a serene residential area and also a city center with shopping malls and commercial buildings. The city developed commercial zones at its central area containing two market spaces run by the DNCC. Both the market spaces along with the other commercial zones were hosting high-end restaurants-cafes, headquarters of both national and international corporate offices, embassies, banks etc. which definitely fulfilled the economic needs of the upper class citizens of the city but failed to fulfill the needs of the people of other limited financial backgrounds. So, the Gulshan DNCC market, though built as one of the commercial city centers, has more to offer to the public in other ways as well. The existing market contains retail shops, restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, small vendor shops etc. which serves the people of all economies. But with the rapid growth of population and urbanization, the existing commercial function is not enough to fulfill the further needs of the residents of this city. Thus the market space clearly required a new design which will balance both the commercial and public needs of the people of all economic backgrounds and fulfill the emerging needs of the growing population of this prominent city center. Source: link.springer.com en.wikipedia.org