Architecture for Socio-Economic Revitalization: Sustainable Reformation of Ship-Decommissioning Industry in Chittagong, Bangladesh

Abstract

The current volume of global shipping stands over 1.8 billion tons per year; an enormous amount of waste is being generated from and of the old ships. The large amount of waste is created by the shipping industry is becoming a great area of concern for the environment and for this reason, ship recycling is now a global necessity and matter of industrial reality. For various reasons over the last few decades, South Asian country's beaches are becoming the key place for dismantling ships; in 2016 over 25% of the old vessels were dismantled in Bangladesh alone. Though theoretically, ship recycling should be a major step towards the sustainable global environment; but in Chittagong, Bangladesh the ship recycling industry does not generate any positive impression of environmental sustainability from any perspective. Rather Bangladeshi ship recycling industry had been infamous for its environmental negligence, poor infrastructure and above all for highly dangerous working environment. In brief, the situation in Bangladeshi ship recycling facilities are dreadful. Here in Chittagong, workers are being forced to work in a highly toxic and hazardous environment without proper safety and infrastructure. To tackle this problem, a drastic change in ship recycling culture and physical organization of the industry is an immediate requirement. The goal of the proposed thesis is to explore the opportunity and find the best solutions to create a suitable physical environment for a sustainable ship recycling model.