In the Satkhira district of southwestern Bangladesh, a school has taken on a second life. By day it teaches students; when disaster strikes, it becomes a refuge. The Baradal Aftab Uddin Collegiate School now houses the country's first "adaptation fortress," a solar-powered building designed to shield people from two hazards that increasingly arrive together: extreme heat and tropical cyclones.
The idea reworks a familiar piece of infrastructure. For decades, coastal Bangladesh has leaned on cyclone shelters for episodic emergencies. The new facility turns that concept into a year-round community hub. During government-declared heat emergencies it can cool up to 200 people in four air-conditioned rooms stocked with clean drinking water; as a storm shelter it can hold as many as 500. Rooftop solar panels and battery backup keep it running when the grid fails, rainwater is harvested on site, and surplus power is shared with the surrounding neighbourhood.
The need is stark. Heatwaves in the region can push temperatures to 44 degrees Celsius, a level at which the shade of a tree or the edge of a pond – the traditional ways of finding relief – no longer protect the body. Some 30 million people live across southwestern Bangladesh, caught in a tightening cycle of cyclones and record heat. A brutal 2024 heatwave forced schools to close nationwide, disrupting tens of millions of students, and forecasters expect a strong El Niño to sharpen the extremes through 2026.
The fortress is a pilot of the Jameel Observatory–CREWSnet, an initiative co-founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Community Jameel and delivered with the Bangladeshi organisation BRAC. It grew out of one of MIT's flagship Climate Grand Challenges projects, which aims to turn climate research into concrete protection for vulnerable communities. Access is prioritised for those most at risk: the elderly, people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, expectant and new mothers, and the school's own pupils.
Organisers see the building as a template rather than a one-off. A second pilot site has been chosen in the Jashore district, and with further funding the model could expand to more than 1,000 such shelters across the region – nudging communities away from reacting to each disaster and toward preparing for the next one.