marina tabassum brings flood-resilient housing and civic architecture to TOTO GALLERY·MA

TOTO Gallery·MA Traces Marina Tabassum Architects’ innovations

TOTO Gallery·MA hosts People Place Poiesis, an exhibition that traces how Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) reshapes architecture in Bangladesh through climate-attuned design, community agency, and lightweight systems built for a rapidly changing world. On view until February 15th, 2026, the show spans two floors and extends into the courtyard with a full-scale Khudi Bari, MTA’s now-seminal flood-resilient housing prototype, installed alongside a newly developed Japan-specific version built with architect Kazuya Morita and students from Kyoto Prefectural University. Previously presented in Munich and Lisbon, this Tokyo edition sharpens the spatial contrasts of the exhibition, placing rural, urban, and transnational responses in close conversation.

images courtesy of TOTO GALLERY·MA, unless stated otherwise

A Journey Through Climate-Responsive Architecture

Visitors enter through a landscape of Marina Tabassum Architects’s work rooted in the riverine and agricultural regions of Bangladesh, a context where roughly one-third of the land can be submerged by seasonal flooding. Photographs, videos, and models, some originally shown at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, outline the spatial, environmental, and social challenges shaping everyday life outside Dhaka.

The upper floor shifts toward Dhaka’s dense neighborhoods, spotlighting MTA’s civic and community-oriented buildings. Community centers, mosques, and public spaces illustrate how the practice uses geometry, brick, and ventilation strategies to create openness without mechanical cooling. The acclaimed Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, built from locally fired bricks and conceived as a serene, breezy sanctuary, becomes a key reference point. A model of the 2025 Serpentine Pavilion adds another layer, showing how MTA translates its climate-responsive principles into a global context.

TOTO Gallery·MA hosts People Place Poiesis | image © designboom

khudi bari: mobility, empowerment, and translocal adaptation

Anchoring the exhibition is Khudi Bari, the compact, easily assembled shelter designed for people displaced by flooding or forced migration. Built from lightweight components that local communities can erect and dismantle themselves, the structure doubles as emergency relief and everyday dwelling. Through F.A.C.E. (Foundation for Architecture and Community Equity), Tabassum’s team deploys these units across Bangladesh and adapts them into larger configurations, including a community center within the Rohingya refugee camps.

At Gallery·MA, the original Bangladeshi Khudi Bari stands in dialogue with a ‘Japanese version,’ constructed with local materials and techniques in collaboration with Morita’s laboratory. The pairing highlights how a design born from Bangladesh’s deltaic conditions can be reinterpreted within Japan’s satoyama landscapes.

tracing how Marina Tabassum Architects reshapes architecture in Bangladesh

the show spans two floors and extends into the courtyard | image © designboom

this Tokyo edition sharpens the spatial contrasts of the exhibition

Aggregation Center model | image © designboom

placing rural, urban, and transnational responses in close conversation

outlining the spatial, environmental, and social challenges shaping everyday life outside Dhaka | image © designboom

the upper floor shifts toward Dhaka’s dense neighborhoods | image © designboom

spotlighting MTA’s civic and community-oriented buildings

Alfadanga Mosque model | image © designboom

showing how MTA translates its climate-responsive principles into a global context

A Capsule in Time, Serpentine Pavilion 2025 model | image © designboom

Marina Tabassum at the exhibition opening | image © designboom

project info:

name: Marina Tabassum Architects: People Place Poiesis

architect: Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) | @marinatabassum

dates: November 21, 2025 – February 15, 2026

location: TOTO GALLERY·MA, Tokyo, Japan

special advisor: Tadao Ando

support: Tokyo Society of Architects & Building Engineers, Japan Institute of Architects Kanto-Koshinetsu Chapter, Architectural Institute of Japan Kanto Chapter, and others

cooperation: Kazuya Morita Laboratory, Kyoto Prefectural University

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hexagonal wooden forms shape totemic red oak house tower by ulf mejergren in sweden

Oak House rises as a hexagonal wooden tower in Kalmar

Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) builds Oak House, a hexagonal wooden structure that merges a hollow ancient oak with a small red house. About 6.5 meters tall, it rises like an oversized woodland character, familiar yet slightly surreal. Children enter through an opening low in the ‘trunk,’ where light filters down from above through thick, branch-like volumes. Inside, it holds equipment for excursions, natural finds to explore, and framed illustrations revealing the oak’s hidden world of insects, birds, and fungi.

The installation stands along Värsnäs Preschool, at the edge of the new Snurrom district in Kalmar, Sweden, where the new neighborhood meets the protected oak forests of the Värsnäs nature reserve. Around fifty ancient oaks tower here, sculptural giants shaped by time, weather, and long life. Their almost fairytale presence forms the starting point for a two-part sculptural artwork: the outdoor Oak House (Ekstugan) and the indoor Oak Place (Ekplatsen). Together, they anchor the preschool in the landscape and let the oak tree become both guide and companion.

all images courtesy of Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA)

Ulf Mejergren extends the concept indoors, with Oak Place

Studio Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) continues the story indoors with the Oak Place. Shaped like a generous stump, it is both furniture and a space of its own. Its form echoes the Oak House but suits indoor use. End-grain oak floors and wide oak boards on the walls create a warm, tactile atmosphere. The Oak Place can shift roles easily: reading corner, workspace, exhibition surface, or tiny stage. From here, children can also look out toward the Oak House, linking the two works into one living gesture. Together, the Oak House and the Oak Place create a continuous experience that blends play, nature, and architecture. They encourage children to explore both outdoors and indoors, letting the oak tree shape discovery, learning, and the preschool’s identity.

Oak House rises as a hexagonal wooden structure shaped around an ancient oak

the installation stands beside Värsnäs Preschool in Kalmar, Sweden

children enter through a low opening at the base of the ‘trunk’

the structure merges a hollow oak form with the silhouette of a small red house

Oak House embed nature into daily preschool life and learning

Oak Place continues the narrative indoors as a stump-shaped room

project info:

name: Oak House

architects: Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) | @ulfmejergrenarchitects

location: Kalmar, Sweden

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