The Architectural Review - 09.2019

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returned to her home country with the

deeply ingrained notion of pursuing

architecture as a vocation rather t han as

a commercial enterprise. She settled in

Karachi, trying to discover her roots.

While exploring old towns, she '\round up

unlearning much of what she had learnt and

relearning her country's heritage. In 1973,

Lari designed the Anguri Bagh housing

project in Lahore, t he first public housing

sch eme on a large scale in Pakistan and

taken up by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's

Bamboo-frame

shelters

Sindh province

2010-

Lari has designed various

configurations of shelters

for areas affected by

earthquakes, floods and

conflicts. Some, like this

one, comprise a

cross-braced bamboo

frame, filled with mud and

rendered with lime, and

are both earthquake and

flood resistant. Other

types are constructed

from unfired clay bricks,

have traditional conical

thatched roofs, or are built

on bamboo stilts to rise

above flood levels. The

smaller shelters can be

raised in two hours and the

lime render completed in a

couple of days.

government. ~Then the project vvas

presented to the women in the area, their

prime concern was what would happen to

their chickens if t hey moved into public

housing. Lari assured them t hat the open-to-

sky terraces at each level would allow them

to keep their chickens and grow vegetables,

while the narrow pedestrian street would

offer a safe playing area for their children.

Lari had been 'deeply affected by t he

morphology and sustainable aspects of

Pakistan's ancient towns and vernacular

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heritage of rural earth buildings' and,

in 1980, she designed the Lines Area

Resettlement, consisting of self-built,

incremental housing for the residents of the

largest informal settlement spread over

more than 200 acres in the heart of Karachi.

Using her land-sharing, self-financing

concept, t he project aimed to resettle 13,

households. The urban design was once

again based on Pakistan's old towns, with

narrow streets and semi-public squares.

I mportantly, it avoided displacement of the

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