Dilshad Ara, now an independent researcher, last worked as an Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering at UAEU (2008–2016). Prior to this appointment, she held MIRS and MIFRS PhD scholarships from the University of Melbourne, Australia. She was educated at BUET, the University of Melbourne (PhD) and has taught at UNSW (University of New South Wales) Sydney, Australia and at the University of Asia Pacific. In 2008, her PhD work was acknowledged for excellence in the UK [Stanley Smith Book Prize] and Australia [2006 John Grice Research Prize in Architecture for best PhD thesis from ABP, University of Melbourne]. She has published research articles in several highly acclaimed journals: the Journal of Architecture, Landscape Research, Journal of Cultural Geography, Frontiers of Architectural Research, Journal of Urban Regeneration & Renewal, and Landscape Design. She has extensive experience as an architect, with a long list of completed projects ranging from residential to commercial structures, as well as large-scale interior design works. Dr Dilshad is IAB-registered for professional work.
Walk-up flats hold a 'non-elitist' typological building status, and a somewhat de... more Walk-up flats hold a 'non-elitist' typological building status, and a somewhat de-glorified position in the modern Dhaka city. Nevertheless, these mundane examples are appreciated as socio-spatially enlivened forms by a large section of middle-class urban dwellers in the contemporary city. Evidently, it is one of the dominant forms of multi-unit housing in Dhaka-a prominence similar to other parallel prototypes in rapidly urbanising developing Asian megacities, 1 though none of the world's megacities comes close to Dhaka's population density, allied to diverse localised housing solutions. The capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka's 14.6 million people live in just
Materials, building technology and innovative details in design played an important role in the t... more Materials, building technology and innovative details in design played an important role in the traditional architecture of the Gulf. Yet due to unprecedented urbanization, vernacular know-how is now being lost or eroded. Besides once ecologically sustainable and energy thrift architectural strategies are now thought to be inappropriate, unsuitable to high-tech buildings and urban settings. Assuming an antithesis to the view that modernity is an antonym for tradition, in this chapter we examine materials, innovative details, and techniques in the Gulf architecture. Underscoring ‘tectonics’, in the context where technology is not self-referential but rather incidental and integrated with design precedents, we examine prudent environmentally informed architectural details and creative decisions used in a region where soaring heat, high humidity and need for security and privacy are major concerns for a living. Across broader geography of the inland and the coasts in the Gulf, Chapter ...
Descriptive and somewhat elusive, sketchy historical notes exist for possible cultural links betw... more Descriptive and somewhat elusive, sketchy historical notes exist for possible cultural links between ethnic people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, South Asia, and ethnic people across the national borders in Southeast Asia. Yet, there is a curious lack of research that uses vernacular architecture or ethnic architectural building typology as a key tool to establish, or reiterate, the common proposition that CHT is the western fringe of a Southeast Asian cultural sphere. Historically, language has been a standard tool used by both colonial British rulers and a few anthropologists to consider the topic of reconstruction of cultural heritage in this geographically complex region, while architecture has played an incidental part. In this article, we examine the stilt or platform typology of vernacular architecture of the CHT as a tool to reflect on the inter-ethnic cultural position of the CHT. The chosen analytical framework hinges on the notion that architecture is constructive, in parallel to language, in establishing a heritage position. The concluding findings of the article establish CHT as a historic region with shared Southeast Asian building-cultural features, notwithstanding the possibility of correspondence to early Austronesian building heritage.
Abstract Using an inner urban area of Sydney city as a case study, the paper puts forward that ov... more Abstract Using an inner urban area of Sydney city as a case study, the paper puts forward that overall residential satisfaction is related to three sets of factors: objective characteristics of environment, objective characteristics of residents and their subjective perception. Three hypothesized models by regression are tested to empirically examine which of the attributes of the residential environment and of the individual have either a direct or no relationship with overall residential satisfaction. Findings suggest that perceptual response to dwelling design aspects and neighbourhood features along with neighbourliness and objective indicator of age are among the strongest predictors. The discussion contributes to an understanding of the importance of ‘good design’ which to some extent may help to attenuate the potentially adverse effects of higher density living.
Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. Th... more Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. The curious dearth of studies derives perhaps more from the absence of a relevant methodological orientation and cross-disciplinary collaboration than a lack of serious interest in the building process itself. By drawing on building methods and know-how from an oral culture, in this essay, we propose that sentient building processes are useful means for constructing one seamless history that transcends limited disciplinary representations. We also pursue the possibilities of collaboration on ethnographic knowledge across vernacular architecture and anthropology. The essay discusses concepts and methods including visual methods. Informed by current anthropology, images are additionally utilised to interpret architectural temporality, a biographical view of dwelling, situated learning, technology–culture non-duality, and socio-spatial references. By intertwining a cross-disciplinary methodological position with methodological techniques and by tying conditions and potentials of human life to the very act of building, concerning an indigenous culture without any written history, we advocate vernacular architecture’s potential to complement mainstream architectural history.
Thinking through the Environment: Green Approaches
to Global History is a collection offering glo... more Thinking through the Environment: Green Approaches to Global History is a collection offering global perspectives on the intersections of mind and environment across a variety of discourses – from history and politics to the visual arts and architecture. Its geographical coverage extends to locations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. A primary aim of the volume is, through the presentation of research cases, to gather an appropriate methodological arsenal for the study of environmental history. Among its concerns are interdisciplinarity, eco-biography, the relationship of political and environmental history and culturally varied interpretations and appreciations of space – from Bangladesh to the Australian outback. The approaches of the indigenous peoples of Lapland, Mount Kilimanjaro and elsewhere to their environments are scrutinised in several chapters. Balancing survival – both in terms of resource exploitation and of response to natural catastrophes – and environmental protection is shown to be an issue for more and less developed societies, as illustrated by chapters on Sami reindeer herding, Sudanese cattle husbandry and flooding and water resource-use in several parts of Europe. As the title suggests, the volume exposes the lenses – tinted by culture and history – through which humans consider environments; and also foregrounds the importance of rigorous ‘thinking through’ of the lessons of environmental history and the challenges of the environmental future.
Walk-up flats hold a 'non-elitist' typological building status, and a somewhat de... more Walk-up flats hold a 'non-elitist' typological building status, and a somewhat de-glorified position in the modern Dhaka city. Nevertheless, these mundane examples are appreciated as socio-spatially enlivened forms by a large section of middle-class urban dwellers in the contemporary city. Evidently, it is one of the dominant forms of multi-unit housing in Dhaka-a prominence similar to other parallel prototypes in rapidly urbanising developing Asian megacities, 1 though none of the world's megacities comes close to Dhaka's population density, allied to diverse localised housing solutions. The capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka's 14.6 million people live in just
Materials, building technology and innovative details in design played an important role in the t... more Materials, building technology and innovative details in design played an important role in the traditional architecture of the Gulf. Yet due to unprecedented urbanization, vernacular know-how is now being lost or eroded. Besides once ecologically sustainable and energy thrift architectural strategies are now thought to be inappropriate, unsuitable to high-tech buildings and urban settings. Assuming an antithesis to the view that modernity is an antonym for tradition, in this chapter we examine materials, innovative details, and techniques in the Gulf architecture. Underscoring ‘tectonics’, in the context where technology is not self-referential but rather incidental and integrated with design precedents, we examine prudent environmentally informed architectural details and creative decisions used in a region where soaring heat, high humidity and need for security and privacy are major concerns for a living. Across broader geography of the inland and the coasts in the Gulf, Chapter ...
Descriptive and somewhat elusive, sketchy historical notes exist for possible cultural links betw... more Descriptive and somewhat elusive, sketchy historical notes exist for possible cultural links between ethnic people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, South Asia, and ethnic people across the national borders in Southeast Asia. Yet, there is a curious lack of research that uses vernacular architecture or ethnic architectural building typology as a key tool to establish, or reiterate, the common proposition that CHT is the western fringe of a Southeast Asian cultural sphere. Historically, language has been a standard tool used by both colonial British rulers and a few anthropologists to consider the topic of reconstruction of cultural heritage in this geographically complex region, while architecture has played an incidental part. In this article, we examine the stilt or platform typology of vernacular architecture of the CHT as a tool to reflect on the inter-ethnic cultural position of the CHT. The chosen analytical framework hinges on the notion that architecture is constructive, in parallel to language, in establishing a heritage position. The concluding findings of the article establish CHT as a historic region with shared Southeast Asian building-cultural features, notwithstanding the possibility of correspondence to early Austronesian building heritage.
Abstract Using an inner urban area of Sydney city as a case study, the paper puts forward that ov... more Abstract Using an inner urban area of Sydney city as a case study, the paper puts forward that overall residential satisfaction is related to three sets of factors: objective characteristics of environment, objective characteristics of residents and their subjective perception. Three hypothesized models by regression are tested to empirically examine which of the attributes of the residential environment and of the individual have either a direct or no relationship with overall residential satisfaction. Findings suggest that perceptual response to dwelling design aspects and neighbourhood features along with neighbourliness and objective indicator of age are among the strongest predictors. The discussion contributes to an understanding of the importance of ‘good design’ which to some extent may help to attenuate the potentially adverse effects of higher density living.
Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. Th... more Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. The curious dearth of studies derives perhaps more from the absence of a relevant methodological orientation and cross-disciplinary collaboration than a lack of serious interest in the building process itself. By drawing on building methods and know-how from an oral culture, in this essay, we propose that sentient building processes are useful means for constructing one seamless history that transcends limited disciplinary representations. We also pursue the possibilities of collaboration on ethnographic knowledge across vernacular architecture and anthropology. The essay discusses concepts and methods including visual methods. Informed by current anthropology, images are additionally utilised to interpret architectural temporality, a biographical view of dwelling, situated learning, technology–culture non-duality, and socio-spatial references. By intertwining a cross-disciplinary methodological position with methodological techniques and by tying conditions and potentials of human life to the very act of building, concerning an indigenous culture without any written history, we advocate vernacular architecture’s potential to complement mainstream architectural history.
Thinking through the Environment: Green Approaches
to Global History is a collection offering glo... more Thinking through the Environment: Green Approaches to Global History is a collection offering global perspectives on the intersections of mind and environment across a variety of discourses – from history and politics to the visual arts and architecture. Its geographical coverage extends to locations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. A primary aim of the volume is, through the presentation of research cases, to gather an appropriate methodological arsenal for the study of environmental history. Among its concerns are interdisciplinarity, eco-biography, the relationship of political and environmental history and culturally varied interpretations and appreciations of space – from Bangladesh to the Australian outback. The approaches of the indigenous peoples of Lapland, Mount Kilimanjaro and elsewhere to their environments are scrutinised in several chapters. Balancing survival – both in terms of resource exploitation and of response to natural catastrophes – and environmental protection is shown to be an issue for more and less developed societies, as illustrated by chapters on Sami reindeer herding, Sudanese cattle husbandry and flooding and water resource-use in several parts of Europe. As the title suggests, the volume exposes the lenses – tinted by culture and history – through which humans consider environments; and also foregrounds the importance of rigorous ‘thinking through’ of the lessons of environmental history and the challenges of the environmental future.
Uploads
Papers by dilshad Ara
to Global History is a collection offering global perspectives
on the intersections of mind and environment
across a variety of discourses – from history and politics
to the visual arts and architecture. Its geographical
coverage extends to locations in Africa, Asia, Australia,
Europe and North America. A primary aim of the volume
is, through the presentation of research cases, to
gather an appropriate methodological arsenal for the
study of environmental history. Among its concerns are
interdisciplinarity, eco-biography, the relationship of
political and environmental history and culturally varied
interpretations and appreciations of space – from
Bangladesh to the Australian outback. The approaches
of the indigenous peoples of Lapland, Mount Kilimanjaro
and elsewhere to their environments are scrutinised
in several chapters. Balancing survival – both in
terms of resource exploitation and of response to natural
catastrophes – and environmental protection is
shown to be an issue for more and less developed societies,
as illustrated by chapters on Sami reindeer herding,
Sudanese cattle husbandry and flooding and water
resource-use in several parts of Europe. As the title suggests,
the volume exposes the lenses – tinted by culture
and history – through which humans consider environments;
and also foregrounds the importance of rigorous
‘thinking through’ of the lessons of environmental
history and the challenges of the environmental future.
Chapter by dilshad Ara
to Global History is a collection offering global perspectives
on the intersections of mind and environment
across a variety of discourses – from history and politics
to the visual arts and architecture. Its geographical
coverage extends to locations in Africa, Asia, Australia,
Europe and North America. A primary aim of the volume
is, through the presentation of research cases, to
gather an appropriate methodological arsenal for the
study of environmental history. Among its concerns are
interdisciplinarity, eco-biography, the relationship of
political and environmental history and culturally varied
interpretations and appreciations of space – from
Bangladesh to the Australian outback. The approaches
of the indigenous peoples of Lapland, Mount Kilimanjaro
and elsewhere to their environments are scrutinised
in several chapters. Balancing survival – both in
terms of resource exploitation and of response to natural
catastrophes – and environmental protection is
shown to be an issue for more and less developed societies,
as illustrated by chapters on Sami reindeer herding,
Sudanese cattle husbandry and flooding and water
resource-use in several parts of Europe. As the title suggests,
the volume exposes the lenses – tinted by culture
and history – through which humans consider environments;
and also foregrounds the importance of rigorous
‘thinking through’ of the lessons of environmental
history and the challenges of the environmental future.