Based in Bangladesh, Marina Tabassum's exploratory approach makes her practice one of the outstanding contemporary positions in international architecture. Her extremely diverse oeuvre spans from governmental projects to housing. For the design process Tabassum works closely with students as well as with the local communities, seeking to establish a language of architecture that is contemporary yet reflectively rooted to place. The driving elements in her design concepts are climate, context, culture and history. Her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque is distinguished by its lack of popular mosque iconography and its emphasis on calibrated structures of space and light. Beyond serving as a place of worship it functions equally as a refuge for a dense neighbourhood on Dhaka's periphery; for this building Marina Tabassum won the prestigious Aga Khan Award in 2016.
