Safi Residence

Safi Residence
Mixed-Use Residential - Sirajganj, Bangladesh - 2026

Roads run along the west and north boundaries of this 2.45-katha corner plot in a semi-urban neighbourhood of Sirajganj, and they define the project's two primary pressures: a narrow right-of-way of eight to ten feet that compresses the streetscape, and a western exposure that brings direct afternoon sun onto the most exposed facade. The building answers both conditions with material specificity. The west-facing brick wall is a full ten-inch solid mass, its thermal weight absorbing and delaying heat gain rather than simply reflecting it. Between the two dominant brick towers that frame the facade, a zone of vertical greenery backed by louvres introduces a second layer of shading and evaporative cooling, a soft seasonal buffer that changes character across the monsoon and dry months.

The ground floor, 1590 square feet in area, organises the owner's private program around a child pool measuring nine feet eight inches by twenty-three feet. This pool is not tucked away as a secondary amenity but placed at the centre of the floor plan, where it opens upward into a double-height void that connects the ground level to the first floor above. The internal stair of the triplex runs alongside and over the pool, rising through this void in a configuration that turns the daily movement of the household into a spatial experience: the pool is always present underfoot and to the side, its water surface and reflected light accompanying the climb. The double-height volume above the pool faces south, collecting the prevailing south breeze and drawing it upward through the open stair to distribute across all three floors of the triplex. On the ground floor alongside the pool, a formal living room (sixteen feet six inches by ten feet five inches) and a living zone face outward, while Bed-1 with veranda occupies the quieter north side of the plan. Caretaker quarters, a guard room, and two parking bays complete the ground level, separated from the private triplex by a clear zone of transition.

The first floor (1122 square feet) shifts the program upward into the more intimate domestic territory: kitchen, dining, and a family living room form the social core of this level, while a hangout space positioned at the stair half-landing carries a different register, looser and less formal, a room that belongs to the stair as much as to the floor. The half-landings throughout the internal stair have been designed with deliberate spatial generosity and a playfulness of section, expanding at each change of direction to create small platforms that resist the purely functional reading of a vertical connector. The void over the pool continues through this floor, visually linking the kitchen and family living area to the water below and the sky above.

The second floor, at 1737 square feet the largest of the three triplex levels, consolidates the sleeping accommodation and entertainment program at the top of the private residence. Four bedrooms (Bed-3 through Bed-6) are arranged around a central party area measuring fifteen feet by twenty-one feet two inches, with a kitchenette and additional toilet serving the entertainment zone. Each bedroom opens to a private veranda, giving the upper floor a continuous perimeter of planted outdoor space that connects to the vertical green network of the facade below. The corner condition gives each resident two directions of outlook across the surrounding low-rise fabric.

The external public stair, which will serve the two independently rentable floors above, is separated from the triplex entry from the outset. This separation is both practical and principled: it preserves the privacy of the owner's residence during the second phase of construction, when the upper floors will be built without disrupting the completed triplex below, and it gives the rental tenants an autonomous address independent of the family home. The stair tower reads as a distinct vertical element on the building's exterior, its separation from the main mass legible from the street.

The rooftop bristi ghor, a pergola-framed pavilion open to the sky and designed for occupation during the monsoon season, completes the section. At this level, above the brick towers and the planted terraces, the building opens entirely to the weather. It is a room that requires rain to be fully itself.