Drik Picture Library and Gallery

Although Rafiq Azam studied and now practices architecture, his childhood passion for painting, particularly watercolor, remained latent in his perceptive world, which he put into use in the interior renovation of this gallery. Azam translated his watercolor brush stroke into the translucent shadows of the timber pergolas of the courtyard, central focus of the scheme.

Drik Picture Library & Gallery is a low budget and kind of interior renovation & extension project onto the forty years old single story residential building keeping it as it is. The client is a renowned photographer, Dr. Shahidul Alam, who requested Rafiq Azam to design a smaller new second level in order to reduce the construction cost. He took it as an opportunity and decided to keep some portion of the roof as open space. In fact, this “left-out open space” was the key piece of the design where a “patio” was created with the very impression of watercolor borrowing light from the sun. The shifting of daylight and the shadow pattern is the aroma of this courtyard. It has also created a movement and made the project lively as it happened in the “Kritios Boy”.This space would eventually be the rendezvous for intellectuals as it happened in Europe

Drik Picture Library and Gallery by Rafiq Azam in Bangladesh won the WA Award Cycle 3. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.