Pushpita Eshika
I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh as the elder daughter of Khandaker Badrul Alam and Meher Maqbula. Born in a city like Dhaka, which at the same time struggling for its historical existence as well as surviving the overloaded population, I naturally developed my interest in spatial organizations and its behavioral pattern. My interest and persuasion of a degree in Architecture thus, is an expected fact to me. But while studying my undergraduates I, for the first time, came to realize the depth and power of architecture. Since then I am traveling in exciting path of architecture, more precisely traveling in the direction of the past. Among all the fields of Architecture, the history of architecture caught my attention to the most and I set my journey to become a researcher in the field of historic preservation.
I completed my five years bachelor of Architecture from Khulna University, Bangladesh in 2005. As I grew interest 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 through-out 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 but my intention of being a researcher and preservation architect remained as the main focus of my carrier. 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 on which I have been working for a long time in my academy. 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. Beside theoretical establishment of my hypotheses about Panam Nagar, I used space syntax as a simulation program, to find out the possible use pattern, their morphological character, Spatial organization and social logic of spaces of these buildings. I also compared these house forms of Panam with the houses of Dhaka prevailing at that time to find the genotypes of these houses. My research finding was that, the buildings of Panam Nagar, though have some residential characteristics, but are more public in terms of residential use. These buildings have very few similarities with the house form of Dhaka. Rather they are absolutely new type with very minimal residential use. I, along with my supervisor presented this finding in the 10th Space Syntax Symposium held in UCL, London, in July, 2015 and got a good response.
As academy has more opportunity to research, I involved myself in full time teaching and joined in a private university named Primeasia as a faculty of architecture in Dhaka from 2010. I was working there for next six years and carried on several research works there. Besides educating the students I dedicated myself on the research work based on architectural heritage. As I believe, before preserving an architectural project, it is very important to know the spatial pattern, the socio-spatial relationship and the hidden language of that project.
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.
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.
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