: Pakistan’s Plans to Rebuild After the Floods Are Flawed. This 82-Year-Old is Trying to Fix Them #WorldNEWS Pakistan is home to one of the ancient world’s most impressive examples of flood-resilient

Pakistan’s Plans to Rebuild After the Floods Are Flawed. This 82-Year-Old is Trying to Fix Them #WorldNEWS
Pakistan is home to one of the ancient world’s most impressive examples of flood-resilient design. The ruins of Mohenjo-Daro, a bronze age city in the southeastern province of Sindh, sit on raised platforms with sophisticated drainage systems that protected them from annual monsoon rains. Those features have helped the remains of these earthen buildings survive for 4,500 years—and weather the devastating floods that have repeatedly struck Pakistan over the last decade, most recently submerging a third of the country in August 2022.
And yet, according to Pakistani architect Yasmeeen Lari, those tasked with rebuilding the country from the floods tend to look not to Mohenjo-Daro, but to the West. “I call it the international colonial charity model: international NGOs and UN agencies say, ‘let’s bring in concrete, let’s bring burnt brick’,” she says. “Well, those are alien materials for people in these areas. ”

Lari, a slight, energetic 82-year-old who was Pakistan’s first certified female architect, is on a mission to transform how her country rebuilds from natural disasters. In the past, when floods or earthquakes have destroyed homes, aid agencies have rushed to replace them with expensive concrete or burnt brick structures, believing, per the International Organization for Migration, that they were the only durable option. But these are not miracle materials. They are not immune to collapsing under the increasingly heavy rains Pakistan faces, as thousands of buildings did during the most recent floods, and when they do they can crush residents. Concrete also absorbs a lot of heat, making life inside homes tough during Pakistan’s summers, and it’s hard for poorer villagers to maintain or expand on them once construction crews have departed. And, because manufacturing concrete and burnt brick is extremely carbon-intensive, these materials worsen the greenhouse effect that is driving more catastrophic floods in the first place. (The manufacture of building materials makes up 11% of global greenhouse emissions, with the lions share coming from concrete. )
A better solution for Pakistan’s climate woes, Lari says, lies in its local architectural traditions. “There is no reason for us not to follow what is already there,” she says, sitting in a cafe at the U. K. ’s Cambridge University, where she is lecturing for the year. “You have to design according to the conditions where you are. ”
The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, founded by Lari in 1980, is training villagers in Sindh province to build their own flood-resilient homes from cheap, locally available, low-carbon materials.