23I90
architects
Mr. Muktadir Apartment
Apartment Interior · Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh · 2016
There are briefs that arrive as technical specifications, and there are briefs that arrive as acts of love. The interior design commission for the Muktadir apartment in Banani fell firmly into the second category. Within a 476-square-metre simplex apartment, the architects were asked to create a home that could serve two very different kinds of inhabitant: adults who wanted a refined, contemporary living environment, and a child with autism who needed something altogether more carefully considered. The result is an interior that holds both worlds with equal attentiveness, without allowing either to compromise the other.
The adult spaces are defined by restraint and material honesty. In the master bedroom, a raised timber platform anchors the sleeping zone, while vertical oak slats across one wall create warmth and acoustic softness without visual clutter. Exposed concrete panels introduce texture and weight, grounding the room in an honesty of materials that runs throughout the apartment. The open-plan living areas follow the same logic: pale marble underfoot, generous ceiling heights, and a sculptural open-riser timber staircase as both vertical connector and spatial centrepiece. A dedicated gym space and sunken jacuzzi pool bring a dimension of wellness into the home without sacrificing visual coherence.
The child's room operates by an entirely different set of principles. The ceiling becomes a continuous undulating cloudscape in deep blue, its soft organic curves acoustically treated to absorb sound and reduce the sensory intensity that open hard surfaces can create. No permanent walls subdivide the space, leaving it open for free movement, cycling, and floor-based play, with surfaces selected to cushion and protect. A hanging globe chair offers a resting and sensory-regulating option. The walls are covered in vivid, joyful murals and typographic encouragements to imagine and create. Every element of this room was designed around a single discipline: that the built environment can participate actively in a child's sense of safety, happiness, and freedom.
Taken together, the Muktadir apartment is a study in what interior design can achieve when it begins not from a style but from a deep understanding of the people who will live within it.
