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The global discourse around architecture education emphasizes rethinking curricula for engaging more with social issues. The shift from creating star architects to socially responsive professionals necessitates examining different approaches to build skills, especially in the design studio, for encouraging a comprehensive system of inquiry for developing design solutions. In Jhenaidah, a secondary city in Bangladesh, fourth-year students participated in a design studio that tried to address critical urban issues and to generate design ideas using field research and community participation. This paper shares the experience of facilitating the design studio. The learning process and studio structure included exploration, examination, consultations, mapping, vision development and strategic planning for arriving at specific design proposals. The experience of working with a local government institution was an added learning of the studio. Pedagogical exploration from the studio reiterates the arguments for balancing rationalism and social responsiveness with creativity in architecture design studios.

Disasters have a direct and acquit effect on human lives and settlement. Assessment of natural movement in the high dense settlements becomes a crucial issue in terms of disaster management. Evacuation, as an intuitive and practically effective emergency rescue measure, has long been used and is expected to be enhanced to protect human populations against hazardous situations caused by these natural and man-made disasters. A well-defined and manageable plan is one of the prerequisites for successful implementation of an emergency evacuation is a life saving measure on disaster events. Haphazard urban growth in old Dhaka and increasing industrial load on specialized industrial zones like Dhaka export processing zone is an alarming marker for disaster preparedness for the city. As lacking in proper disaster management process, emergency evacuation system developed not so far. In the methodology, investigation has done through Michael Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation Model. The measurement and assessment of the effectiveness is based on three dimensional analyses: Consumers contentment Index, Public stuffs index and Collective worth. Considering the present situation, and is undertaken with different objectives of analyzing the existing emergency evacuation system of old Dhaka and DEPZ area. In the virtual effectiveness analysis, user satisfaction indexes/ Consumers contentment index (C.C.I.) score is 41, 47 and 45(out of 100) for Industrial, household and others respectively and Public Stuffs Index for industrial unit is 33, for Households Unit is 44.55 and for others unit is 48.72. All these score indicates the poor level of Emergency Evacuation Service of Old Dhaka and DEPZ. The study examine service level of present emergency support system, which are prominent variable to develop an effective emergency evacuation plan to reduce hazard impact on specific area.

Critical climate stress moments may be defined as those moments when households, communities, and their livelihood systems are vulnerable to climate related risks and hazards. This working paper examines critical climate stress moments due to specific climatic and biophysical causes experienced by the people in the Teesta River basin in India and Bangladesh. The Teesta, like other river basins of the Himalaya, has a fragile geology, as well as complex climate, ecosystems and socio-economic conditions. Critical moments can serve as a tool for communicating vulnerabilities and the challenges to sustainable lives and livelihoods, and to link vulnerability assessments with adaptation policy and action.

A relatively large number of Pakistanis known as the Bihari community have been stranded in Bangladesh since its independence in 1971. The unresolved repatriation problem is a consequence of deliberate procrastination and political indecision on the part of both the Bangladesh and Pakistan governments. The aim was to analyze and find out the housing and socio-economic conditions in addition to the other services provided to the Bihari people of Selil Colony, commonly known as the Bihari Colony of Rajshahi. Quantitative surveying followed by snowball and simple random sampling method was used for collecting data and the analysis and interpretation part was visually presented with graphs, bars, and cross tabulation using SPSS (Statistical Software for Social Science) software. The intensely bad condition of the Bihari people was found with poor housing conditions, very scarce employment in good sectors, low combined income of the family, comparatively high illiteracy rate, less utilization of the provided utility facilities in a healthy way and degrading condition of relief services. Day by Day, the situation is falling down. A kind step in view to recover this so long unresolved problem would be so generous from the government. This initiative might include the ways that make their lives happier, much more comfortable and lively through education and awareness.

Access to land is very important for socially and economically disadvantaged people, from the countries where agriculture is the main source of employment to improve their livelihoods. It brings an opportunity for producing their livelihoods reducing extreme poverty. Land management is a tool being employed by governments around the world to contribute in this respect. In Bangladesh, guchchogram/ cluster village projects are done for rehabilitating rural land less people to reduce poverty. Successful implementation of such projects will help in reducing poverty, migration and improving socio-economic condition of the rural poor. This paper focuses on evaluating cluster village projects whether they are improving the socio-economic status of the people.

Background Cities are at the fore of sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century, and many, particularly in Asia and Africa, are predominantly youthful spaces. Understanding young people’s experiences in urban environments is therefore important as we strive to achieve both the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. Two amenities identified in the urban Sustainable Development Goal 11, transport and public and green space, are specifically recognised as applying to youth. Yet, there is little analysis that explicitly considers how youth experience these amenities across the Global North and South, and no current measures for understanding progress in youth experiences of green space and transport. Results This paper provides a comparative analysis of young people’s experiences with local transport and green space in seven diverse urban communities (Christchurch, New Zealand; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lambeth/London, UK; Makhanda, South Africa; New Delhi, India; São Paulo, Brazil; and Yokohama, Japan). Our study contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to listen to child and youth perspectives to understand their environmental experiences. We examine the ‘affordances’ young residents aged 12 to 24 years currently associate with green space and transport amenities. Affordances are defined here as the inter-relationships between what a local environment offers young people and their perceptions and actions. Drawing on focus groups and interviews conducted with 332 young people, we identify five affordances young people associate in relation to transport and public space across these diverse urban settings: (1) social inclusion and belonging; (2) autonomy; (3) physical comfort and security; (4) relaxation and reflection; and (5) health and fitness. Conclusions The paper contributes to growing interdisciplinary research interest in measuring affordances as a way to advance the Sustainable Development Goals in an urban context. In providing a comparative account of young people’s experiences across diverse contexts, our discussion highlights how affordances in relation to transport or public and green space can help understand the multiple interconnections between the well-being of young people and sustainability. In particular, we argue that it is not merely the provision of transport or public and green space that matters, but the nuanced meaning of places and experiences as understood by local communities that needs to be recognised if we are to better support urban youth wellbeing and advance sustainable development goals.