Healing Patch: Advancing Regenerative Architecture Towards Carbon-Negative Cities | Bachelors Design Thesis

Site Context

The project is situated within Purbachal New Town, Dhaka’s largest planned urban extension developed by RAJUK, on a 20-acre site originally designated as a commercial zone. Strategically located adjacent to a proposed MRT station, a major highway, educational institutions, low-cost housing, and emerging residential neighborhoods, the site is positioned to become a future urban hub.

Rather than following a conventional monofunctional commercial model, the proposal introduces a mixed-use regenerative superblock integrating residential, office, retail, and public functions. This transformation creates a pedestrian-oriented, environmentally responsive development that strengthens connectivity, activates public life, and establishes a scalable prototype for future carbon-responsive urban growth in Bangladesh.

Design Process

The design process is structured around five interconnected strategies that collectively transform a conventional commercial development into a regenerative urban ecosystem.

1. Unify – Consolidates fragmented plots into a single superblock, reclaiming underutilized setback spaces as continuous public and ecological infrastructure.

2. Regeneration – Integrates Urban-Healing-Transport (UHT) modules that combine vegetation, renewable energy generation, and water harvesting to actively restore environmental performance.

3. Edge Matrix – Reimagines setbacks as productive ecological buffers and civic spaces, enhancing biodiversity, public interaction, and local economic activity.

4. Extended Urban Realm – Expands public life vertically through accessible terraces, rooftops, and elevated landscapes, creating a multi-layered civic network beyond the ground plane.

5. Form Matrix – Uses computational simulations to optimize building morphology for daylight access, self-shading, wind permeability, and productive surface area. The resulting staggered form minimizes ground coverage while maximizing ecological surfaces, renewable energy potential, and passive environmental performance.

Together, these strategies create a flexible, high-density urban framework that balances environmental restoration, public life, and long-term adaptability, offering a scalable model for future regenerative development.

Final Outcome

The proposal culminates in a regenerative mixed-use superblock that integrates residential, office, retail, and public functions within a unified ecological framework. Rather than maximizing ground coverage, the development concentrates density vertically, preserving extensive open landscapes, active green setbacks, and publicly accessible spaces that strengthen environmental and social performance.

The ground plane becomes a pedestrian-first civic realm, while terraces and rooftops evolve into productive landscapes supporting renewable energy generation, water harvesting, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. The three interconnected terrains respond to different urban demands while functioning as a single environmental system.

The Residential Terrain promotes adaptable living with regenerative veranda modules, the Office Terrain provides long-term programmatic flexibility, and the Retail Terrain serves as the environmental engine of the development, dedicating over 70% of its roof area to solar farming while enhancing natural ventilation through its massing.

Computational optimization, passive environmental strategies, low-carbon materials, and integrated UHT modules significantly reduce embodied and operational carbon while improving daylight access, wind permeability, and thermal comfort.

Conclusion: More importantly, the project demonstrates that architecture can move beyond minimizing environmental impact to actively generating renewable resources, restoring ecological systems, and supporting resilient public life. Healing Patch establishes a scalable prototype where future urban growth becomes a catalyst for ecological regeneration rather than environmental degradation.

This is not a final answer but an adaptive solution for the urban realm of the future.

[This Academic Project has been published with text and images submitted by the student]