Pushpita Eshika
I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I completed my five years bachelor of Architecture from Khulna University, Bangladesh in 2005. As I became interested in architectural heritage, I was privileged to work in the field of my interest in my undergraduates. I was selected as one of the national delegates in arc-asia student Jamboree, held in Hong-Kong in 2004, where the conference topic was heritage tourism. In that conference, I had the opportunity to present a research paper on heritage tourism based on a national heritage site in Bangladesh named Panam Nagar. Afterwards, I continued to work on this particular site and presented this site as a thriving heritage tourism site in my bachelor thesis by different proposals for this historic area as a promising conservation project. This thesis had been appreciated throughout the architecture schools of the country as I had an opportunity to exhibit my ideas in front of other schools in a collaborated program with in the architectural schools of Bangladesh.
After completing my graduation I started working as a professional architect. I enrolled myself in M.Arch as a part time student in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2007. I earned my M.Arch Degree in 2014. In my M.Arch research I, again focused on the house form of the historical landscape of Panam Nagar. Panam Nagar is situated in the heart of once famous cotton looming region of Bengal, named Sonargaon. In my M. Arch thesis, I tried to find out the spatial relationship and organization pattern of the houses of Panam nagar as a part of their morphological study. I also tried to find out the origin and genotype of these buildings by comparing these buildings with the buildings of Dhaka prevailed at that time. The research outcome was quite exciting which indicates that, these buildings are very unique in nature and are not found anywhere in Dhaka. I, along with my supervisor presented this finding in the 10th Space Syntax Symposium held in UCL, London, in July, 2015.
I joined in a private university named Primeasia as a faculty of architecture in Dhaka from 2010. Besides educating the students I dedicated myself on the research work based on architectural heritage.
While unveiling the hidden spatial behavior of these built forms I found it very much stirring to study the relationship of human being with the space they use, especially of those spaces which are previously used by particular group of people or went through some sort of transition. The configuration of space changes with the physical, sociological and cultural behavior of human being. In my own interest I involved in the research work on the traditional house form of Bangladesh. Besides documenting the architectural and structural features of these buildings, I wanted to learn the untold living stories of these houses by analyzing these houses in terms of their use pattern and the behavior of their users. As a part of this research, I worked on the traditional house form of Sylhet, a territorial region of Bangladesh which is a survivor of immense global migration. My study topic was the transformation of the traditional house form due to global migration; their impact on the socio cultural behavior of the region and finally on the house form. Those buildings are again unique in nature and have very much regional, socio-cultural and topographic reason that determined their spatial configuration, structural design and building materials. Due to the Diaspora community this cultural identity is in the verge of destruction. My study was to highlight the extinction of this cultural heritage as a result of modernization. I had the opportunity to present this research work in some international symposiums and seminars. like ICCPP.
I am working on the field of architectural heritage and historic building analysis and preservation since 2004 in the form of different academic project. I am enrolled in the PhD program of Heritage studies in the Arkansas state university and currently I am working with Dr. Edward Salo, Assistant Professor of History, Heritage Studies PhD Program, Arkansas State University as a graduate assistant where I got the opportunity to work on several historic preservation projects going on in Arkansas.