Marina Tabassum Architects

Founded in 2005, MARINA TABASSUM ARCHITECTS (MTA) is an internationally recognised architecture and studio-based practice located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. MTA began with the mission of establishing a language of architecture that is relevant to the contemporary world yet rooted in location. Standing against the global pressure of consumer architecture – a breed of buildings that are out of place and context – MTA is committed to anchoring architecture to a place, and its designs are informed by climate and geography. MTA’s work is widely praised as environmentally conscious, socially responsible and historically and culturally appropriate. Every project undertaken is a sensitive and relevant response to the uniqueness of individual sites, contexts, cultures and people.

With a focus on combining research and teaching, MTA invests heavily in understanding the impacts of climate change in Bangladesh, working closely with geographers, landscape architects, planners and other allied professionals. Additionally, MTA prioritises marginalised and low- to ultra-low-income communities, with a goal to elevate the environmental and living conditions of people.

MTA’s process-based practice is seen internationally as a twenty-first-century model. As such, MTA has presented works and research to numerous institutions across Bangladesh and internationally. In 2016, the firm received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque – a building distinguished by its lack of popular mosque iconography, an emphasis on space and light and its capacity to function as a place of worship and also a refuge for the dense neighbourhoods on Dhaka’s periphery. The project was listed among the top 25 postwar buildings of the world by the New York Times. In 2025, MTA received the second shortlisting for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Khudi Bari, a product of self-initiated research that is now housing displaced marginalised communities in the sand-beds of the Ganges delta. Made with bamboo, the Khudi Bari structure was scaled up to serve as community centres in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar housing more than one million forcefully displaced Rohingyas.

MTA’s works are currently the subject of a monographic travelling exhibition showing in Munich, Lisbon, Delft and Tokyo. Between 2018 and 2020, MTA was part of a group exhibition Bengal Stream that travelled in Switzerland, France, Germany and Dhaka. MTA’s Khudi Bari is in the permanent collection of Vitra Design Museum and Museum of Modern Art. The office participated in Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018 and 2025 and in Sharjah Architecture Triennial in 2019. Marina Tabassum, Architecture my journey is the first monograph of MTA published by ArchiTangle in 2023.