In Dhaka, top-down infrastructure projects are synonymous with "development". The city’s fragile ecological commons falling victim to these projects has been a defining feature of the developmental regime for past decade or so. The extension of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway through Hatirjheel Lake and Panthakunja Park, resulting in the felling of approximately 2,000 mature trees and partial filling of the lake, represents a defining moment in Dhaka's contested urban transformation. The park sits at the centre of several deep urban conflicts, highlighting the clash between city-wide mobility and local liveability, the stark divide between the wealthy and street dwellers, and the contest between political oligarchs and grassroots resistance. 

These conflicts force us to ask: who is this city truly planned for, whose mobility is being prioritised, and whose environmental future is considered expendable in the relentless pursuit of economic growth and infrastructural modernisation? This masterclass examines how the project was advanced in disregard of state laws, policies, and court directives, and what it reveals about the Bangladeshi state's neoliberal development logic and its insensitivity toward life, nature, and the environment.

Keynote presenters Amirul Rajiv and Naim Ul Hasan, Coordinators of the Bangladesh Tree Protection Movement, will present the case step by step, drawing on their direct experience of grassroots resistance. They will be joined by discussants Dr. Shayer Ghafur (Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, BUET), Niklaus Graber (Architect and Curator: Bengal Stream, The Vibrant Architecture Scene of Bangladesh); Dr. Adil Mohammed Khan (Professor, URP, Jahangirnagar University); and Shehzad M Arifeen (Senior Lecturer, ESS, BRAC University), with the session moderated by Dr. Md. Musleh Uddin Hasan (Professor, URP, BUET).