Pyramid 2012: A global workshop to promote sustainable development

Pyramid 2012: A global workshop to promote sustainable development An UN initiative

A daylong workshop (“Pyramid 2012”) to promote sustainable development was conducted with the students of Architecture Department (Studio V) on Thursday, February 16, 2012 at Campus -7. The workshop was an UN initiative and part of a global workshop conducted in 40 different countries at the same time. Anika Nasra Haque and Saimum Kabir, Lecturers of Dept. of Architecture who are specialized in Climate Change conducted the workshop. The extended support of the Department Head and other faculties made this event a success. “Pyramid 2012” is a global workshop event which was scheduled to happen on (and around) 16-19 February 2012 to make sustainability a reality. During that period, or just before and after, groups around the world gathered for one or two days to run their own “Pyramid” workshops and generated ideas and initiatives to help create a more sustainable world. The objective behind the workshop was not only to accelerate learning and engagement in advance of the Rio+20 global summit on sustainable development, but also to generate ideas and initiatives that will inspire people. The UN has called for new ideas ... And Pyramid 2012 generated as many as possible, ideas ... plus the energy and motivation to make them real.  The ideas generated from the workshops will be documented and submitted to the UN and will be presented in Rio +20 Earth Summit. Department of Architecture, American International University- Bangladesh represented Bangladesh in this global event. The central challenge thrown to the group was ‘Urban Water logging’: A case of Dhaka city. The students were divided into four groups for brainstorming, representing four domains of Nature, Society, Well being and Economy. They have gone through five steps of the pyramid identifying indicators, systems, innovations, strategies and finally the keystone representing the agreement. They have come up with a vision of future Dhaka as ‘A Hydraulic City’ which will solve the central challenge of Urban Water logging.