Khen Maung & gong

Khen Maung & Gong
Simplex Multi-Apartment · Basundhora R/A, Block-L, Dhaka · 2024

Good architecture often begins not with form but with rules, specifically with understanding which rules can be worked intelligently and which must simply be obeyed. At Block-L, Basundhora R/A, 23/90 Architects identified a provision within RAJUK's building regulations that allowed for significantly deeper front verandas than the standard setback would typically generate, and they took that provision seriously. On a 6-katha plot accommodating eight owners across 1,600 square metres of simplex apartments, the front veranda depth was calculated to its maximum legal limit, producing an outdoor zone that reads from the street as unusually generous but is, in fact, precisely within what the regulations permit. The intelligence lies not in bending the rules but in understanding them well enough to extract their full spatial potential.

The result of that calculation is the building's most distinctive feature. The front verandas, stretching across the full width of the building at every residential floor, are not simply balconies enlarged to code maximum. They function simultaneously as veranda, as garden, as shading canopy for the floor below, and as terrace, each one fulfilling four spatial roles within a single projected slab. The vegetation trailing from their edges and the planted boxes embedded within them give the facade a deep, layered quality that reads as living architecture rather than applied greenery. The horizontal bands of these stacked outdoor rooms, shaded and planted, give the building a strong datum that reads calmly and confidently from the street despite the relative compactness of the site.

The footprint decision that enabled this facade depth also had a consequence on the ground: by pulling the building's mass back from the street edge, the architects freed a generous ground-level zone that, on a 6-katha plot, is genuinely surprising in its scale. A tennis court occupies part of this open ground, a significant amenity for a building of eight owners that would be unimaginable without the deliberate compression of the built footprint above. The car driveway and parking, visible in the ground-floor render, are absorbed into this landscaped apron with a covered canopy of exposed concrete and timber-slatted ceiling, turning a functional necessity into an arrival experience with genuine spatial character.

The apartment plan itself reflects an equally considered flexibility. Designed for eight co-owners whose spatial needs may differ, the floor plate is organised on an open-plan logic that allows each unit to be configured as two, three, or four bedrooms without altering the building's service infrastructure. Wet areas, utility cores, and structural elements are positioned to remain fixed while the living and sleeping zones between them can be arranged to suit each owner's household size and lifestyle. A family requiring four bedrooms can claim the full depth of the plan; a couple preferring a more open, generous living area can reduce the bedroom count accordingly. The building does not dictate how its owners inhabit it. It offers a framework and then, deliberately, steps back.

At the rooftop, the design continues its commitment to usable outdoor space. A planted terrace wraps the summit, its edges dense with climbing plants that have already begun to spill downward in the renders, connecting visually with the veranda vegetation on the floors below. A pergola structure provides shade and structure to the rooftop, making it a genuine extension of the building's habitable surface rather than a residual space. The building is capped with a projecting horizontal canopy that extends well beyond the roofline, its scale and precision giving the tower a clear, composed crown that grounds the composition from any distance.