Anna Heringer Community Builder

rchitecture is a tool for improving lives. That’s the ethos of German architect Anna Heringer, who has been working in Bangladesh since 1997, when she was 19. Building with local input – and with such readily available materials as mud, bamboo and textiles – she directly involves the very people who will eventually use her buildings as schools and gathering places. In 2006, Heringer completed the METI Handmade School, winner of an Aga Khan Award for Architecture, in Rudrapur. This was followed by the DESI Training Centre, unveiled the following year in the same city. In 2018, she started teaching a studio at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, focused on designing a childcare centre for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Besides creating such unique, useful buildings in caught up with Heringer to talk about the importance of building with one’s hands, investing in local know-how and rehabilitating the image of mud and bamboo architecture.