Tando Allahyar: Yasmeen Lari, an architect, is 82 years old and leading the charge to strengthen Pakistan's rural communities, which are most affected by climate change.
Lari, Pakistan's first female architect, has abandoned a lifetime of multimillion dollar projects in Karachi's megacity to create ground-breaking bamboo homes that are flood-proof.

Families are credited with being saved from the worst of the devastating monsoon flooding that submerged a third of the country last year thanks to the few pilot settlements that have already been built.

Khomo Kohli, a 45-year-old resident of Pono Colony village, some 300 kilometres outside of Karachi, said "We continued to live in them."

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While waiting for the water to recede, the remaining residents were forced to move onto the road.

Lari is currently pushing for the project to be expanded to include 1 million houses made from readily available local materials, creating new jobs in the most vulnerable areas.

She described it as a form of "co-building and co-creation" because everyone contributes equally to adorning and personalising it.

The British-trained architect is responsible for some of Karachi's most notable structures, including a number of opulent mansions and brutalist structures like the Pakistan State Oil headquarters.

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She was contemplating retirement when a string of natural calamities, such as a devastating earthquake in 2005 and flooding in 2010, strengthened her resolve to carry on with her work with her Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which oversees her rural projects.

She said, "I had to find the answer, or find a way by which I could increase people's capacities so that they could fend for themselves instead of waiting for outside help."

"My motto is zero carbon, zero waste, and zero donor, which I think leads to zero poverty," she said.
 Scientists believe that climate change is making monsoon rains heavier and more unpredictable, which makes it even more urgent to flood-proof the nation, especially since the poorest people tend to live in the most vulnerable areas.

When Lari was working on social housing in Lahore in the 1970s, local women would scrutinise her plans and question where she would put their chickens.

The needs of women are always prioritised when she designs, she said, adding that "those chickens have really stayed with me." This time, the redesign of conventional stoves has been elevated to the status of a noteworthy feature.

"In the past, the cooker would have been on the ground level, which made it extremely unsanitary. Champa Kanji, who has been trained by Lari's team to construct stoves for homes throughout Sindh, claimed that small children would burn themselves on the flames, stray dogs would lick pots, and germs would spread.

"Watching women achieve independence and empowerment makes me very happy," Lari said.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects honoured Lari for her commitment to using architecture to improve people's lives by giving her the 2023 Royal Gold Medal.

She transitioned from a sizable practise focused on the requirements of international clients to a solely humanitarian cause, according to Simon Allford, president of the RIBA. She is "an inspirational figure." This feeling is wonderful," Lari said. Of course, it also makes my tasks more difficult. I must make sure that I deliver right away