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World Heritage Lahore Fort in 2003, Lari
used her experience of working with mud
on some of her earliest projects - the
barracks in Bahawalpur of the early '80s,
and a couple of schools built near Karachi- to rehabilitate t he earthquake victims.
Donor agencies offered help but, faced with
this devastation, building traditions ·were
eschewed in favour of prefab housing,
concrete structures and galvanised iron
sheets. Using mud, lime, stone and wood
from the debris to make houses that ·were
"r'iV//(I \A
_JPakistan State Oil House
Karachi
1991PSO House is the
headquarters of a
state-owned multinational
oil corporation, the largest
in Pakistan. The building
comprises 550 , 000 square
feet of office space and
rises 10 storeys, including
an impressive five-storey
entrance atrium and
panoramic lifts.bot h cost-effective and eco-friendly, Lari
worked with a large number of people
who had lost everything. With a team
of volunteers she taught people to use
indigenous materials to build better and
safer, encouraging t he victims to work on
a self-help basis rather t han depending
on government assistance.I enjoyed using expensive building materials
such as large glass panels, polished granite
and steel trusses', Lari reflects, 'and perhaps
with my present work I am atoning for the
damage I caused with my earlier projects',
although as she points out, even then she
managed to build a few structures using
sustainable materials.
Since this about-turn post-retirement,
Lari's work has had a significant impact on
marginalised communities not only in
Pakistan but also further afield. 'At the timeThis shift in her work was not as out of
t he blue as it might first appear. In her
initial years after graduating from Oxford
Brookes School of Architecture, Lari