A large university campus is being created in Dhaka, using a low-tech approach that is bringing new modernity to the region. The site is polluted swampland that’s being transformed into a revitalized lake that will also serve the public as a recreational amenity.

Sim Choon Heok and Richard Hassall of WOHA received a Global Finalist 2018 certificate for “Floating University”, on behalf of Mun Summ Wong, main author of the project. The 2017 Awards winning design for BRAC University’s new campus in Dhaka, Bangladesh, remediates a neglected area that has become a heavily polluted sewage dump, and opens it back up to residents of the city. The approach allows both the university and the public to inhabit the site. The low-tech design of the 13-storey university campus for 10,000 students rises above a drainage basin that is to become a healthy, natural lake. The certificate was handed over by Edward Schwarz, General Manager of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction.