Physical Density and Urban Sprawl: A Case of Dhaka City - KTH

The houses are very close to one another. There is no provision of cross ventilation in the
houses. The inhabitants open the roof’s tin for cross ventilation during summer.
Figure 4.12: Open the roof’s tin to get fresh air. Source: Sultana, 2007.
Figure 4.12 is showing the informal way of cross ventilation. The houses in this settlement do
not have windows. That is why residents open their roof to get fresh air during summer.
4.2 ‘Tikkapara Bustee’ in Mohammadpur thana
It is one of the oldest ‘bustee’ in Dhaka city. The physical densities, plot characteristics and
spatial qualities of the most of informal settlements in Dhaka city are similar to each other.
This is the reason why one of the settlements of this characteristic is considered in the present
study. The total area of this settlement is 4.05 hectares (DCC, 2005). There are a total of 3000
(DCC, 2005) households in this settlement. Every household usually is occupying one room
and all houses are one storey. According to the data of LGED, 65% ‘bustee’ or ‘bustee’ like
settlers occupy 9.3 square meters (LGED, 1996) for a single room. If the room size is of
maximum 9.3 square meters and each household occupy one room, the total land covered by
the houses in that settlement is approximately 3 hectares.
Physical densities
So, the Maximum FAR = 3/ 4.05 = 0.74
Maximum land covered by houses = 0.74*100 = 74% (since all the rooms are one storey)
Number of storey = 1
Number of houses = approximately 3000, because in the informal settlements usually one
household occupy one single room.
Figure 4.13 illustrates the physical densities of the houses inside the block. The houses are
very close to each other and so there is no space among them. All the houses are one storey
with very small size.
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