Professor Rafiq Azam
Professor Rafiq Azam
Principal Architect and Owner
SHATOTTO architecture for green living

Professor Rafiq Azam is an internationally acclaimed architect from Bangladesh who has been practicing and developing his remarkable style of green architecture for the last more than 30 years. His architecture is a harmonious fusion of tradition, nature, and mysticism, including tiny elements of nature to adorn his buildings with poetic beauty. Architecture to him is not just an abode for humans, but a nest for butterflies and birds as well. Rafiq Azam’s mastery of light, shadow, water, and air is influenced by such mysticisms as cited by Lalon and Tagore. His green architecture is not a mere mechanism of energy saving - rather it is an inspiring process of energy gaining. Rafiq Azam was born on December 29, 1963, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He graduated from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 1989 and started his architectural practice, “SHATOTTO architecture for green living”, in May 1995. In 2004, Rafiq Azam participated in the “Glenn Murcutt Master Class”, and in 2008 was selected as one of the ten emerging designers of the world by “Urban Land” in the USA. As a visiting faculty, Rafiq taught at notable institutions such as the National University of Singapore, NED Karachi, Jadavpur University India, Curtin University Australia, University of Asia Pacific, North South University Dhaka, and Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, Dhaka, among others. Currently, he is a visiting professor at BRAC University He won a line of both national and international awards for his architectural contributions. Most recently, Rafiq Azam has received the World Architecture Festival (WAF) Landscape-Urban 2022, 12th Idea-Tops Awards 2022, Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA) Robert Mathew Lifetime Achievement Award 2022. He has also been awarded High Commendations in the AR Public award, UIA and UN-HABITAT Awards 2022. He has also acquired the ARCASIA Gold Medal 2017, World Architecture Festival Award (WAF) 2017, Cityscape Global Award 2017, the Berger Award for Excellence in Architecture, the Leading European Architects' Forum (LEAF) Award 2012, the AR Awards for Emerging Architecture in 2007, and the IAB Design Award 1996 to name a few. He has also served as an international juror on multiple architectural platforms and has attracted media attention from all over the world.

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