RETHINKING NILKHET BOOK MARKET: Towards development of an urban hub & retail.

Nilkhet book market is one of the most vibrant market places of the fastest Megacity, Dhaka,
Bangladesh. Initiated by a few street vendors, the 50 years old cultural market is now contains more
than 1300 books and stationary shop. The market is serving up the major educational institutions in its
immediate surroundings and also the city of 20 million dwellers.
However ,its peripheral street vendor shops have occupied the entire street. An unplanned layout,
accessibility pattern and lack of open spaces have turned this cultural market place into a urban
mayhem. The immediate market traffic node has become one of the major traffic congestion nodes in
Dhaka due to the impact of this vibrant cultural market.
Nilkhet Book Market is responsive to the demand of its surroundings. The place also conserves high
traditional value, considering a place where meet student of all general and specialized branch of
education. This urban centre is a highly fascinating space. However it has enormous effect on the
ongoing traffic chaos of this metropolis.
Uncontrolled Street shopping along with its indoor market has made the regional cluster an urban
mayhem. Existing environment has grater qualities which create the opportunity to personalize the
place to the user. The every single element of existing market offers enormous potential as tools for
planning and composition of this design project.

Project background

The history of Nilkhet Book Market is 40 years . Four young book seller started selling second hand books and magazin on the pavement outside the Balaka cinema hall. Soon Nilkhet had became a popular market of books for the extrem demand of surrounding educational institutes. The existing market has over 1700 shops including a kuccha bazar and a 315 years Baqusha masque with graveyard inside .
The location of this market is one of the highest commercial places of Dhaka and the maximum valuable land. Today the market undoubtedly is serving up a part of total population in Dhaka. The 4 to 6 feet width corridors and the catastrophe atmosphere inside the market are not efficient to serve the huge number of user. For all this circumstance it's time to Rethinking the Nilkhet Book Market.

Project rationale

Nilkhet is a place in Dhaka where students can find all kind of books and stationary. The existing book market is located to nearby Home Economics College, Eden Mohilla College, Dhaka College, Dhaka University, Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology and Dhaka Medical College are also close to the maket. Everyday around 1330 nos. user comes here for books, stationeries, photocopy, binding etc. Around 1700 shops are connected by the narrow dark corridors. A lot of shops take places on the adjacent footpath. On the other hand the vital traffic node ( nilkhet node) of Dhaka city beside nilkhet book market. This node have a huge vehicular jam because of the road side shops.
The location of this market is one of the commercial places of Dhaka and thus the maximum valuable land . The land owners association has decided to build here a multistoried building for maximum commercial benefit but the long established horizontal growth and the beauty of organic arrangement of the existing market conflicts with their proposal of total vertical approach.

Scope of the project

This proposed project would be an student gathering space , be an urban breathing space for the city , provide a healthy environment for the users and chance to be a solution for the node's traffic jam .
The existing 200 years old mosque must be conserved. Along with many other issues the commercial complex in this iconic site must have the scope to explore and very significant project in national aspect.