Intent Wings: A solution-driven design for children
A team of Bangladeshi architects and researchers have come up with a design for building rooftops that will allow children to play traditional games while the elders watch over them; much like a village courtyard but for our concrete jungle
A rectangular court is drawn on the ground, either with white chalk or a red brick chip. It is further divided into four or six rectangular or square cells. The fourth or sixth cell is split into two — this is called the 'rest'.
The cells are known in order as ekka (first), dokka (second), tekka (third), chaukka (fourth), pakka (fifth), and lasthi (sixth). Each player has a marker called a 'chada', which is usually a small, flat stone or a piece of terracotta.
Known as Ekka Dokka or Kitkit/Kutkut, this skipping game is one of the most famous traditional games in Bangladesh. But in cities, especially Dhaka, very few children can play these due to rapid urbanisation and lack of space.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The total area of Dhaka is 306.4 square kilometres with approximately 18 million residents, and 48% of this population are children below the age of 18. Unfortunately, for this huge number of children, there are only 148 playgrounds and 27 parks.
A team of Bangladeshi architects and researchers have come up with a design to incorporate on the roofs of city buildings that will allow children to play and get to know our traditional games better.
The project is titled 'Intent Wings', which is an integrated space for the children of the community. The team consists of three architects: Nusrat Jahan Mim, Hasib Sarowar, and Shoheli Akter.
Architect couple Hasib Sarowar and Shoheli Akter are design enthusiasts, and both of them want to define urban architecture through solution-based designs for communities.
Intent Wings turns leftover spaces like a roof, staircase landing, or parking into a socialising space for children.
"Due to a lack of space, we observed that children are usually growing up in congested places with an addiction to technology. So, we wanted to come up with a creative design for a leftover apartment building space in a way that would allow the children to play and the grownups to socialise as well," Sarowar said.
The space includes a painted roof floor, in-built corners to play traditional Bangladeshi games, and a colourful canopy overhead to provide shade and also help in rainwater collection.
"The main goal of the research is to develop a sustainable architectural solution for child-friendly play space by using leftover space from housing. We believe that this design will help children of this generation to know about the traditional games of this region," he added.
Inspired by Squid Game
In 2021, the popular Korean drama series Squid Game was released. It featured a secret contest where 456 players, all of whom are in deep financial hardship, risked their lives to play a series of deadly children's games for the chance to win a lot of money.
"What we saw was that the players were led to play Korean childhood games, but the forms were a bit modified. Korean traditional games were redesigned or revisited in a new way in that series. That is where we got the idea to work with Bangladeshi traditional games," Sarowar said.
He explained how our traditional games have certain mapping or field designs with rigid geometric forms. For example, Bou Chi has a circle and a straight line; Ekka Dokka has rectangular boxes; Tin Ghuti (three pawns) or Sholo Ghuti (sixteen pawns) has a board design of its own. Manghsho Chor has two separate boxes for both teams, and Ful Tokka has an invisible form where players are seated in a straight line or parabola.
The architects brought fluidity to the rigid game forms by including curved lines, floral patterns, etc. "In our concept, we thought of incorporating 10 to 15 of these forms on a 418 square feet roof that would allow the children to play all of these games.
This way, the forms will be more fluid or playable by city children in a small space," he said, adding, "If we draw these courts, seating arrangements, lines, and boards in large scales with colourful paints on the floor of the roof, eventually the children will learn the rules."
Sarowar said that these games are usually simple, inexpensive, and some of them can be played by people of all ages.
Research shows playing physical games can improve children's abilities to plan, organise, get along with others, and regulate emotions. In addition, they help with learning language, maths, and social skills and even help children cope with stress.
And not just the children, sometimes adults can also participate. They can reminisce about their own childhood days and create a stronger bond with their family members. Elders can also teach the children the different verses used in the games and help them better understand our culture.
In 2020, Work for Better Bangladesh (WBB) started celebrating a car-free day at Manik Miah Avenue on the first Friday of every month. The car-free avenue was open for children to play.
Although the idea was really good, it didn't continue due to traffic. In response to that, Sarowar said they thought of using staircase landing, parking lot, etc which could be used and designed to play small scale games like ludo, kitkit, chess etc.
Canopy, paint and bamboo columns
The proposed solutions are adaptable and affordable; as the team has measured, the design elements can be incorporated for not more than $90.
It is quite affordable with just a few metres of gamcha fabric, a few metres of tarpaulin, bamboo poles to be used as posts, flower pots and cement to be used as the base for the bamboo posts, and paint.
The temporary shade or canopy creates a semi-outdoor space. Above the colourful roof floor, it creates a playful environment.
"Safety is a big issue here. We cannot suggest that children play on top of the 9th or 10th-floor roof without supervision. So, we are suggesting that school buildings in housing societies, which are generally one or two-storeyed, their roofs can be used to teach folk games," said Sarowar.
The space essentially represents a village courtyard where children will play and elders will watch over them, guide them during the games and also communicate with each other.
