Virtual Conference on Sustainable Architectural Design and Urban Planning AsiaSustainabilityNet.upc.edu September 15-24, 2007 Traditional House of Bangladesh: Typology of house according to materials and location. Rumana Rashid Universiti Technology Malaysia, Johor Bharu, Malaysia ABSTRACT: Traditional Houses represent the heritage of a country and also reflects traditional forms and values, fundamental to the culture of the people of that country. It possesses distinct characteristics as regards planning, use of materials and location. Like urban architecture, traditional house is also subject to change but in Bangladesh traditional house has clung to tradition. It has not really changed until recently. For centuries traditional house has been using locally available materials. It is only from that late 19th century that traditional house began to change in the use of housing materials. Traditional architecture in Bangladesh was largely built without formally trained professionals. Buildings were built by construction workers. Any architect or planner never designed traditional house. The full planning concept has been developed by the people according to need. This traditional house has been changed along with time to fulfil the demand of the user. At the same time planning concept was constant. The aim of this paper is to get natural design principles of different type of traditional houses in Bangladesh according to availability of local materials. The different kinds of house are developed in different regions of Bangladesh such as mud house, bamboo house, stilts house and timber house. Many designer are now interested in adapting traditional feature to modern design but such attempts have had limited success because traditional house design have themselves not been clearly understood. This study can help to convey a good understanding by analysing different types of traditional house in Bangladesh. Keywords: traditional house, typology, local materials, location, climate. 1. Introduction In most of the tropics, traditional housing is rural housing, as confirmed in a study made by koenigberger et al. traditionally housing is designed by the user in his spare time and based on low investment, local materials, combined with the assistance of relations, friends and neighbors. Traditional house reflects cultural heritage of peoples, also encapsulate traditional forms values. The practice of drawing on traditional architecture to inform contemporary design has been promoted by many theorists and distinguished architects such as Hasan Fathy ( Steele, 1988 ). Among other advantages they claim, is the benefit to be derived from centuries of experience in adapting form and material selection to achieve comfort in relation to the local climate. Now in Bangladesh urban development threatens them almost total destruction. Contemporary dwellings which are characterless, thermally inefficient and expensive to run, are replacing traditional village housing which is light weight, cool, made of renewable materials and able to be built largely by sweat equity. So it is essential for Bangladesh to take some sensitive approach to solve this problem. But before taking this attempt it is essential to know what are the tradition houses in Bangladesh. The thirst of this paper wants to evaluate the structure construction and design of the traditional house according to typology. Traditional houses are influencing by the local available materials, climate depended of people, and economical ability of the people. The owner of the house according to comfort demand consequence designs most of the time traditional houses. From history it has been revised the owner of the traditional house are changing the design that traditional houses have been rebuilt, traditional houses designs do maintain comfortable conditions for longer periods than the contemporary houses (Kevin mc cartery). 2. History of the Traditional Housing Housing has been changing its forms and building styles throughout the history in response to socio-economic forces as well as climatic conditions and geographic locations of Bangladesh. Settlements in Bangladesh territory initially took place in the highlands of south- eastern areas covered with forestation that gave natural protection from floods, tides of the rivers and sea and cyclones. Gradually, with increase in population the settlements spread in areas with prospects of Architecture. The growth of population ultimately came out as the single major factor for spreading the settlements all over Bengal, which almost entirely remained rural until the close of the 17th century. Development of small townships