Jonaki Ghor: Building a breathing space for Korail’s children
A group of architects and artists from Bangladesh, Greece, Italy and Switzerland took on the challenge of building a community space in fire-prone, land-scarce Korail. At its core, the project sought to give residents room to gather, learn and rebuild hope
Korail, one of the most densely populated settlements in Dhaka, has almost no land left. Every open field has been built on, fenced off or claimed.
Fire has repeatedly disrupted community life in the area. Major fires in the past decade destroyed hundreds of homes, shops and belongings. Families rebuilt, simply for the sake of survival.
In a place where land is so scarce, every available square metre has to serve multiple purposes. The idea of building a 'community space' here might seem like a luxury. Yet, in reality, the people desperately needed one.
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A group of architects and artists from Bangladesh, Greece, Italy and Switzerland, calling themselves the Adda Collective, took on that challenge. But when they found no available land, the only solution was to look up — to add new layers on top of something that already existed.
Over two years of workshops, conversations, and children's drawings, they built a structure from scratch. They named it Jonaki Ghor, meaning house of the fireflies.
Standing above a wastewater plant
A UNICEF-supported wastewater purification plant stood on the edge of the settlement, its concrete slab fenced off and inaccessible to residents. It served one function: sanitation. The collective saw another possibility. Above it, without disturbing a single pipe below, they built Jonaki Ghor.
At daytime, Jonaki Ghor welcomes children and women for workshops, learning sessions, and community gatherings. From the building, you can overlook the lakes around the slum. Sunlight enters in abundance, creating a playful atmosphere.
For a place like Korail, it gives children and the community a little space to breathe — a place where the congestion of the settlement eases up a bit. At night, the building lights up like a lamp — a symbol of light and hope amid the darkness.
It is the only standing structure in the area that is, to some extent, fire-resilient. Yet the grammar of the building is the same as that of the vulnerable infrastructure surrounding it. It does not look like an imposter, positioned to offer the community a luxury that feels distant to them. Instead, it is a place where children and young women can gather, play, sing and simply exist in their own way.
Khairunnesa, a young mother of two children — one an infant, the other six years old — is delighted to have a space like this in Korail.
"Where we come from, the children had abundant places to play, to have a childhood," said Khairunnesa. "It feels good to have a building for children to play here."
Her son Motin said he will come to play here every day after school once it becomes operational.
A design imagined by children
We spoke to Niklaus Graber, the Swiss architect behind the building. Graber & Steiger Architects, his Lucerne-based firm, designed Jonaki Ghor executed in collaboration with the local consultant Studio Machang.
Graber's relationship with Bangladesh, however, did not begin with Korail. He came to Bangladesh to study Louis Kahn's iconic Parliament building. But the building itself was not enough — he needed to understand the roads, the rivers, and the context the building sits in to understand Louis Kahn.
Over the years, he curated exhibitions on Bangladeshi architecture, taught at the Bengal Institute in Dhaka, and co-authored a book on Muzharul Islam, the architect who shaped much of independent Bangladesh's institutional identity. He kept coming back.
"I hope that the building becomes too necessary to stop. That it is used, loved, and eventually becomes self-sustaining. That a community which has rebuilt itself more than once finds in it something worth protecting."
In 2024, there was an open call inviting architects to submit proposals for an art exhibition in Korail.
"I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to explore a different reality," Graber said. "Besides the Parliament, which is strongly linked to the history of Bangladesh, Korail is strongly linked to the history of Dhaka. It is a very important study: how do people live in informal settlements? What is everyday life? Here is the Parliament, but here are the people. I was very curious to learn about this side of real life."
When their proposal was accepted, architects and artists from different countries, including Graber, formed the Adda Collective. Over six months, they visited Korail repeatedly. They ran drawing workshops, built models with children, and explored everything together in hands-on sessions. They asked one question: what is your desired Korail?
The children drew. From those drawings the collective derived small structures — shades, gathering spaces, playground facilities. A bamboo installation wrapped with hundreds of children's drawings went up on the concrete slab of the wastewater plant, built together with the community using old saris and reclaimed wood. Everyone learned from everyone.
When UNICEF saw what had happened, they saw the potentials of the proposed multi-use — that a fenced-off utility plant could become a place of identity for an entire community. That reaction opened a door. The next conversation was about building something permanent.
In a way, children are the real architects behind this project.
Built on what Korail already had
Jonaki Ghor stands on four steel legs, four contact points beside the existing concrete slab of the wastewater plant, adding a community space to Korail without taking a single square metre of land from it. Below, the plant continues its work. Above, the children have theirs.
The platforms are column-free and wide-span. No walls divide the space into the smaller and smaller rooms that define everything else in Korail. Inhabitants of Korail imagine it to be a learning centre, in the favour of the community and above all the children. It can grow into a library, an exhibition space, a venue that generates income to cover its own maintenance.
Steel was chosen deliberately. Used in a structurally optimised way, it is a resource-efficient, recyclable, and long-lasting building material, with advantages related to fire resistance that bamboo or wood simply cannot match. The lightweight building envelope is made of translucent Jutin panels, a jute-based composite developed by Bangladeshi scientist Dr Mubarak Ahmad Khan and manufactured locally by Applied Bioplastics.
Graber asked the manufacturers to do something they had never done before: make them translucent. The result is a skin that lets sunlight pour in during the day and releases light outward at night. That is why the building glows. Along the edges large panels hinge open like oversized windows letting the breeze through while keeping rain out — the same logic as the canopies above the windows of old houses in rural Bangladesh, just built to last longer.
The staircases are wide enough for people to move through quickly, built to the same safety standards applied in common buildings internationally.
But can a community build something like this without the assistance of a Swiss architectural firm and UNICEF?
According to Graber, yes. Absolutely.
"It is straightforward enough for a community to build something like this. This is perhaps a bit more expensive than tin sheets and masonry — but those masonry buildings going up three and four storeys are prone to earthquakes. This building is 100% earthquake-safe with very little material," he said.
Graber hopes that the building becomes too necessary to stop. "I hope that it is used, loved, and eventually becomes self-sustaining. That a community which has rebuilt itself more than once finds in it something worth protecting," he added.
The house of the 'fireflies'
The name 'Jonaki Ghor' did not come from the architect. It came from the children.
During one of the workshops, the conversation turned to what to call the building. They were given a few options, the option most loved by the children was Jonaki Ghor, since they felt that they themselves would be the fireflies — the ones who gain knowledge and share it, the ones who enlighten others.
"It was a beautiful metaphor. And in the end, an initial idea can trigger a building, and a building can carry that idea forward," said Graber.
In a place like Korail, these metaphors can go a long way.
