Housing has been changing its forms and building styles throughout the history in response to socio-economic forces as well as climatic conditions and geographic locations of Bangladesh. Settlements in Bangladesh territory initially took place in the highlands of southeastern areas covered with forestation that gave natural protection from floods, tides of the rivers and sea and cyclones. Gradually, with increase in population, the settlements spread in areas with prospects of agriculture. The growth of population ultimately came out as the single major factor for spreading the settlements all over Bengal, which almost entirely remained rural until the close of the 17th century.

The house forms, building styles and materials used in construction had significant variations in different areas of Bengal. Perhaps the only thing in common was the clustering of houses in particular places forming a para, a few of which grouped together to form a village. Historically, bamboo had been the most important building material for housing in Bangladesh. Even today bamboo is widely used and as in the past, bamboo is still good in making the fences for rooms and as pillars or crossbars to support the roofs. Other materials used in rural areas in making fences for rooms or houses include canes, jute sticks, corrugated iron sheets, wood and mud or mud bricks. The village houses are mostly thatches and the material used to cover their tops include khad (straw from dried paddy or wheat plants), san or ulukhad (reed), kash (tail grass) and golpata (leaves of a special species of small tree growing mostly in marshland). The relatively stable structures use corrugated iron sheets stretched on a flat frame or supported on a triangle shaped bamboo or wooden base. Houses built with mud walls feature most in the districts of rajshahi division, although many other places including elevated areas in dhaka, barisal and chittagong divisions also have abundance of such houses.

Structurally, the traditional rural houses in Bangladesh may be grouped in seven types: choushala (four rooms on four raised sides and a uthan or open space in the middle); britighar (the house and all its rooms fenced within one boundary); atchala (house with eight roofs, four over the main building and four over the verandas attached on each side), postaghar (house constructed on elevated platform); dishala bandh ghar (house of two large rooms on two separate platforms and an open place between them); susthita ghar (house surrounded by verandas on all four sides; and house of the tribal people.

Development of small townships in ancient Bengal by the kings and their representatives at various places had once introduced a group of special types of houses constructed mostly within fort structures. These houses had residence of the owners at the centre and rooms for service and support personnel alongside the boundary wall. Archeological excavations discovered some of such houses in different parts of Bangladesh. Almost all of them were built with mud bricks.

Urbanisation in its proper sense started in Bengal with establishment of British administrative centres (particularly, the district headquarters) and development of business centres on the banks of large rivers. The process, however, did not bring much change in house structures and their styles. Houses in these newly developed townships used almost the same materials as in the surrounding rural areas and yet, changes started showing up very soon. These houses were constructed usually in rows and blocks and many of them were built in European architectural design. A completely new phenomenon was the growth of slums, especially around industry centres and for the people migrating from rural areas in search of jobs and earning opportunities. Buildings in some areas adopted the designs of Muslim architecture and in many places, the influence of typical Indian structures of the Mughal period could be seen in abundance.

Developments in housing in East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971 may be characterised by a fast growth of urban structures and modern houses in towns with amenities like electricity and running water supply. In spite of urbanisation, the psychology of the people in general did not change much and most people continued to prefer living in individual houses rather than in flats in multistoried buildings. Apartment buildings were becoming a vogue in Dhaka city towards the middle of the 1970s and by 1985, the trend gained a momentum with large-scale acceptability of the concept of living in flat houses under acute shortage of land and in a situation of rapid increase in land prices and the cost of construction.

Real estate financing is a relatively new concept in Bangladesh. The East Pakistan government took a few projects of developing land in the large cities for allotment of housing plots to the privileged few. The initiative resulted in creation of satellite towns and organised residential areas for urban elite. The House Building Finance Corporation provided loans for purchase of lands for housing purposes and construction of residential buildings. The system still continues and is enriched by involvement of some private agencies and banks in financing real estate and housing projects as well as in providing loans for purchase of flats by individual persons. Meanwhile, increasing number of real estate firms are coming up in Dhaka, all other major cities and also some small towns with projects of land development for sales of residential plots in them and of construction of apartments buildings for sale of flats. The business and the market have now become competitive. This has scaled down the prices of private sellers of real estate holding and also reduced the subsidies in government sales of plots for housing. As a result, the prices of government plots are now almost at par with those of plots sold by private real estate firms. [Sadat Ullah Khan]