Does architecture inspire you?

Does architecture inspire you?

It's coming up to 30 years since I qualified as an architect, and I have never been more inspired by a building or a fellow architect than I have recently.

?The architect is Yasmeen Lari, and the building is the Women's Centre in Daryl Khan, Pakistan.

?I became aware of Yasmeen Lari and her work when she was awarded the RIBA gold medal this year. She studied at Oxford and has practised in Pakistan as the first female architect in her country.

?She retired from a successful career in commercial practice in 2000 and formed a foundation that began working with distressed communities helping them to rebuild their lives, making the architecture the product of the self-help

?The fact that she is the first woman in Pakistan to qualify as an architect and that she decided to dedicate her career to using her knowledge to help others is inspirational in its own right.

Her buildings address the region's challenges, such as flooding and earthquakes, with elevated spaces or lightweight structures made strong with cross bracing and trusses.

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She only uses three materials, bamboo, lime and earth, which are readily available and can be reused or recycled.

She has four zeros: zero carbon, zero cost, zero waste and zero poverty.


She also has some nos: no handouts, cement, or steel.

Local women construct all of the buildings Yasmeen has designed. One of Yasmeen's team trains them in building techniques so that the community is self-sufficient and can build new structures and maintain existing ones.

Standardised panels are prepared off-site, similar to the new methods of construction which our industry now promotes. All buildings are naturally ventilated with no mechanical plant.

Pakistan is a developing country and has different requirements than the West. In the West, we need our televisions, washing machines and air conditioning; however, we can learn much by returning to the basics.

Yasmeen Lari's values and buildings can inspire us to make the changes required to save our planet.

?

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