Yasmeen Lari: Architecture as a Tool for Dignity and Social Change

Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan's first female architect, born in 1941, has revolutionized cooking for women in her country with the chulah, a raised mud-and-lime cooking platform that reduces accidents, emissions, and improves food hygiene. The project unexpectedly fostered social empowerment: women gained dignity by cooking upright on platforms, decorated their chulahs as unique artworks, and turned them into social hubs. Lari, who calls herself "Architect of the Poorest of the Poor," closed her practice in 2000 to focus on humanitarian work through her NGO Heritage Foundation Pakistan. After the 2005 Kashmir earthquake (82,000 deaths), she engaged isolated women, discovering their skills in crafts like bracelet-making. In flood-affected areas, she rebuilt on raised platforms and introduced bamboo, earth, and lime as carbon-neutral materials. Lari advocates for architectural education reform, urging incubators for young architects to work on humanitarian and urban design issues. She received the Royal Gold Medal from RIBA in 2023. Her work emphasizes vernacular techniques, women's empowerment, and carbon neutrality through bamboo, which captures carbon from lime. Lari spoke at Triennale Milano's "In focus: radical repair" conference linked to the Young Climate Prize.