What's new

Bushra Afreen becomes first chief heat officer in Bangladesh

Brick field owner family and kind of proud of not being super educated.....sigh.....
When a large earthquake hits, a thousand Heat Ladies would not be enough to evaluate the situation. It is because these Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) structures are not designed as per internationally recognized standards.

The two most important design procedures are not followed in Dhaka.

- Soil investigation works are not correctly done. These are needed to know the bearing capacity of the soil below. When pillars/ piles on one side of a structure settle, the entire building collapses as was seen in Turkey.
- No real design (mathematical) analysis is done. Design offices copy the drawings for other buildings. They put reinforcement similarly by a kind of Thumb's Rules Bangladesh style.

I wish our Heat Officer knew the genuine design procedure of a high structure and advises the Municipality engineering department to follow the British Standards (BS) or American Standard, ACI Codes.
 
Last edited:
. . .
Title was invented by a Washington DC Thinktank.

They appointed half a dozen women to be "heat officers" for different global regions.
It's dumb. Was it hard to call them "Climate Officers" or something?
 
.
It's dumb. Was it hard to call them "Climate Officers" or something?
Americans understand English better than we do. Anyway, important is her duty and responsibilities as a Heat Officer in BD.
 
Last edited:
.
Americans understand better than we do. Anyway, important is her duty and responsibilities as a Heat Officer in BD.

What are these?

Apparently she made a semi-official pledge to reduce the temperature in Dhaka 4-5 degrees centigrade over a few years (guessing - a decade?).

This will probably be achieved by including the following measures (but not excepting other measures not mentioned here),
  1. Ensuring mandatory green tree and vegetation cover over all EXISTING rooftops in Dhaka
  2. Ensuring all new urban centres and suburbia (such as Purbachal, Jolshiri, Jhilmil, Nikunja etc.) have a certain percentage of green space (and/or water body) allocated. I have heard that Purbachal and Jolshiri (new DOHS bordering Purbachal) will each have minimum 40% green space allocated.
  3. There might be new rules for offsets around apartment complexes and roadway and highway medians planted with trees.
  4. Also rules for spacing out density of apartment complexes adjacent to each other.
  5. Usage of LEED Green building principles for factories (which is already very much in vogue)
  6. New incentives for increasing number of electric vehicles and reduction of fossil fuel burning vehicles on city and urban roads
  7. New incentives for solar electric installations on rooftops (especially in factories per LEED)
  8. New incentives for rainwater collection and filtered rainwater usage in buildings
  9. New incentives for usage of heat reducing glass in commercial office towers (which is currently produced locally by PHP and others).
More about LEED at the USGBC website,

 
Last edited:
. .
It's dumb. Was it hard to call them "Climate Officers" or something?

I'd go with that rather than "Heat officer". More important will be what they come up with.

People are pooh-pooh-ing the fact that she's the DNCC mayor's daughter, nepotism etc.

But look at it this way - she will definitely have pull with Abboo on who is complying and who is not.

So my guess is she will be successful. This is how things work in Bangladesh.

Here is a Green restaurant designed in Dhaka to reduce heat. Notice the profusion of greenery, shade and flowing water. I like it.

Green Lounge: An Enchanted Sky Garden


| Architecture | Highrise | Interior | Landscape | Project | Restaurant | Roof garden |
|Total Views: 10,839|
| 4 November, 18 |
AMUR-34-900x600.jpg

© AMUR architecture

Name:Al Mamun Ur Rashid | AMUR Architecture
Year:2018
Location:Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Dhaka
Client:G& G, Green Group
This beautiful rooftop restaurant, sitting atop a high-rise building in Dhaka, offers a peaceful escape from the notoriously busy city below. Rising high above 200 feet of the ground, the lounge-hidden in the lush, green garden-is juxtaposed against the gray urban setting. With a seating capacity of about 500 people distributed in two levels, the project is claimed to be the largest rooftop restaurant of Bangladesh.

As lives are increasingly getting urbanized, the connection with nature, natural light, green space and organic materials are gradually disappearing. Such transformations are causing lives in such cities to be unendurable. This project is a humble attempt to restore human-nature connection by mimicking the ‘groundscape’ on the hard surface of urban rooftop while offering the visitors a ravishing green experience.
© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture
The context demands for a space to be developed where the users can transcend themselves from hustle and bustle of the city and have a deep breath. The idea of the design has been derived from the retreat to a countryside that the city dwellers do to recharge themselves with the charms of the nature. Involving the sounds of the flowing water, tweets of the birds and rustling of leaves, these are depictions of the countryside that have enriched the intended flavour for the project. Here in this project architecture seamlessly blended with nature.
© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture
Here spaces are derived from the architecture of villages. Ghat chemistry, courtyard, river edge, pond detail, vegetable cultivation structure, seating under tree, village house form, rural landscape, boat on river edge, jungle and ground figure relation between soil and trees are the metaphors that finally imparts a merger of physics and chemistry of the spaces.
© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture
As the project faces west, a tall tree trunk- made wall and natural trees have been incorporated to cut the scorching sun. A large ( 120’x50′) MS mesh made see through green canopy is developed for exaggerated the play of light and shadows, further giving a sense of enclosure.
© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture© AMUR architecture
As such the project is a combination of indoor and outdoor spaces that are constructed mostly with steel supplemented with the incorporation of trees, bamboo structures in cases. High-tech glass works have been incorporated to some challenging areas. Customised attempts are made for the steel structures are painted with green colour to merge with the concept of nature. The project is a fair example of what can be done at roof level at any high rise building.
 
.
Local architecture is of a high enough standard that they have incorporated green belts and even greenery into high rise designs. Take a look. I can vouch for this as I know culturally Bangladeshis (Bengalis in general) love to surround themselves with nature.


Render-NHA-02.jpg
 
.
What else do you suggest? 😁 I mean everyone wants to live near emergency centers etc..

Sure but there's no reason that buildings can't be single-storey and emergency centers at the same time. :)

Things can be decentralized a lot : Neighborhood-level free clinics, shops and even urban / vertical farms though the farms can be two or three storeys. All this will reduce commuting to a great extent and build neighborhood-level and city-level self-sufficiency and scientifically-arranged employment.
 
Last edited:
.
So my guess is she will be successful. This is how things work in Bangladesh.
People know how a father loves his daughter. So, her Abboo Mayor must be jumping in excitement for her daughter to be appointed to an important post by an international organization.

DNCC Mayor himself is a positive-minded person. He himself has changed much of Dhaka's ugly face. With Abboo's patronage, the daughter will also do a good job. This is what I think.
 
.
Title was invented by a Washington DC Thinktank.

They appointed half a dozen women to be "heat officers" for different global regions.

What is a heat officer? Like what do they do ?

It just sounds like cell network for USA
 
.
What is a heat officer? Like what do they do ?

It just sounds like cell network for USA

Role of a chief heat officer​

A chief heat officer is hired to address rising temperatures driven by climate change. Their purpose is to raise awareness of extreme heat risks to protect the most vulnerable citizens within their city. They plan and coordinate short and long-term responses to heat waves, as well as implementing long-term risk-reduction projects.

The recent emergence of chief heat officers worldwide is part of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance strategy to provide a billion people with climate resilience solutions by 2030.

 
.
Apparently she made a semi-official pledge to reduce the temperature in Dhaka 4-5 degrees centigrade over a few years (guessing - a decade?).

This will probably be achieved by including the following measures (but not excepting other measures not mentioned here),
  1. Ensuring mandatory green tree and vegetation cover over all EXISTING rooftops in Dhaka
  2. Ensuring all new urban centres and suburbia (such as Purbachal, Jolshiri, Jhilmil, Nikunja etc.) have a certain percentage of green space (and/or water body) allocated. I have heard that Purbachal and Jolshiri (new DOHS bordering Purbachal) will each have minimum 40% green space allocated.
  3. There might be new rules for offsets around apartment complexes and roadway and highway medians planted with trees.
  4. Also rules for spacing out density of apartment complexes adjacent to each other.
  5. Usage of LEED Green building principles for factories (which is already very much in vogue)
  6. New incentives for reduction of fossil fuel burning vehicles on city and urban roads
  7. New incentives for solar electric installations on rooftops (especially in factories per LEED)
  8. New incentives for rainwater collection and filtered rainwater usage in buildings
  9. New incentives for usage of heat reducing glass in commercial office towers (which is currently produced locally by PHP and others).
More about LEED at the USGBC website,

What is she going to do ?
I think she will shrink Dhaka to a size where she can place it inside a refrigerator.
 
Last edited:
.
What is she going to do ?
I think she will shrink Dhaka to a size where she can place it inside a refrigerator.

Ha ha ha LOL.

I already mentioned her future objectives in a post. Please check my earlier post #36 above.
 
.

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom