Bangladeshi architect Kashef Chowdhury’s firm URBANA has won the inaugural $200,000 Ambasz–MoMA Prize for Nature-Reconciled Architecture for its Friendship Centre in Gaibandha.

The award recognises the firm’s approach to integrating architecture with nature, particularly through a design that responds to the environmental challenges of Bangladesh’s flood-prone Jamuna River delta.

Designed between 2008 and 2010 and completed in 2011, the Friendship Centre provides training and meeting facilities for underserved communities. The complex features a compacted earthen embankment for flood protection and is built primarily with locally produced clay bricks.

Its design also incorporates green roofs, open-air courtyards and interconnected rainwater-harvesting pools to promote natural ventilation and regulate indoor temperatures without air conditioning.

The project was selected from nearly 140 submissions from around the world.

Funded by the Legacy Emilio Ambasz Foundation, the prize recognises projects completed within the past 30 years that address the relationship between the built and natural environments.

The total prize money of $200,000 will be divided equally, with $100,000 going to the winning architect and another $100,000 allocated to a non-profit organisation for tree planting.

Fundación Gran Chaco, based in Formosa, Argentina, will receive the latter amount for reforestation work in the Gran Chaco forest. The allocation is made in honour of Friendship, the NGO that commissioned the project.

Speaking about the recognition, Chowdhury said the Friendship Centre had served an underserved community for 14 years but drew inspiration from a much older architectural heritage.

“The Friendship Centre has been in service to an underserved community for 14 years. Yet, it is not a building of 14 years of age, but rather 2,300 years of age, as it draws its inspiration for flood protection from the nearby third-century BC settlement of Mahasthan,” he said.