Indigenous Treatment Methods and Construction Techniques for Increasing the Durability of Traditional Houses in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a disaster prone Country. The geographical setting of Bangladesh makes the country vulnerable to different natural calamities like floods, nor-wester, cyclones. The climate of the country is characterized by high temperature, heavy rainfall and often excessive humidity. Bangladesh is a rural based country. The rural populace uses the indigenous materials, methods and design techniques to construct their houses not only because of their availability and low cost, but also because of their familiarity and acceptability. But the country’s climatic behaviours are quite favourable to decrease the durability of house materials, moreover almost every year natural disasters destroy a considerable number of village houses leading to housing problems and financial burden of reconstructing the houses for poor villagers. With available materials and local methods it is very difficult to build their houses totally immune to those unfavourable climatic conditions and natural disasters. Although from a long time rural people have been trying to develop different treatment methods of house materials and construction techniques for increasing the durability of houses and some of them are very effective. This paper reviews the traditional treatment methods and local construction techniques that are used by rural people to increase the durability of the traditional houses in Bangladesh.