Pakistan's flood-hit homes get green, disaster-resilient redesign
Posted 5th May 2023
As Pakistan tries to rebuild better after devastating floods, cheap, natural and easy-to-construct homes may be one answer.
In flood-hit southeastern Pakistan, villagers are trading tents and tarpaulins provided by aid agencies for local materials such as lime, mud and bamboo to build their own low-cost and water-resistant homes as part of a post-disaster recovery rethink.
Designed by Yasmeen Lari - Pakistan’s first certified female architect - about 1,000 such houses have been built in Sindh province following unprecedented floods last year that submerged about a third of the country and killed at least 1,700 people.
While traditional mud huts are vulnerable to extreme weather and building concrete homes is expensive and high in carbon emissions, Lari’s houses were devised to be disaster-resilient, environmentally friendly, and quicker and easier to erect.