DESIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

architect

Architects often associate Vitruvius with ‘The Vitruvian Man’, a concept popularised by Leonardo da Vinci, rather than focusing on the man behind it, Marcus Vitruvius Polio. Vitruvius, a 1st-century BC military engineer and architect, was among the first to establish a theoretical foundation for classical architecture in his work, ‘De Architectura’ or ‘Ten Books on Architecture’, envisioning architecture as an interdisciplinary field that encompassed the physical and intellectual life of humans and their environment that included music, astronomy, mathematics, meteorology, and medicine. Similar theories were contemporaneously developed in the East through concepts like Vastu Shastra and Feng Shui.

While idealising Vitruvius as a strong link between architecture for humanity, Yasmeen Lari acknowledges Mies van der Rohe and Hassan Fathy too. “The two ends of the spectrum of the two worlds we live and work in are best illustrated by Rohe, a master of putting the elements of a building together and the grand master of detail. While Fathy, on the importance of tradition from the beginning, letting the buildings grow from the daily lives of the people who will live in them, shaping the houses to the measure of people’s songs, weaving the pattern of a village as if on the village looms, mindful of the trees and the crafts that grow there, respectful of the skylines and humble before the seasons.”

While Lari was quoting Fathy, my mind had wandered off to sitting across Chrysler in New York, waiting for my *Roark to make an appearance. If you have not indulged in the ‘Fountainhead’ by Rand, this reference may not impact your vistas, but it sure did mine growing up. Roark was passionately involved in each building to be true to its purpose – he loved the rawness if itwhich served the functionality of ease and well-being. Vehemently opposed to the gilded cones and abhorrent towards replicating classics, he called such architects ignoble mimics. Yasmeen Lari is practically a successor of Roark. While he revolutionised the postmodern design, Lari is on the cause of intersecting it with social justice.

She pursued the art of mathematics intertwined with the habitation for optimum productivity of any civilisation, in the 1950s, and came to Pakistan with her British and American laurels to set up Lari Associates, an architectural firm. She became the first female architect of Pakistan, a credential she shrugs off as coincidental, and not merit worthy.

Work with Lari Associates went with big projects like ‘The Taj’, ‘Finance Trade Centre’ on Shahra-e-Faisal, ‘Faysal House’ on Haroon Road, PSO Offices in main Clifton, etc. However, one fine day she just shut it all down. Lari Associates closed and Heritage Foundation picked up. This journey from ‘city defining structures’ to pride in ‘mud-baked oven’ is monumental and for this I took her precious time to understand the intersection of architecture and social justice.

In the realm of sustainable architecture and social justice, few figures stand as prominently as Yasmeen Lari. Her journey from privilege to purpose offers a compelling narrative of how architecture can become a powerful instrument for social change.

Born into privilege with her father in the ICS (Indian Civil Service) and educated at prestigious institutions including Queen Mary in Pakistan and then Oxford Brooks (School of Architecture under the auspices of Oxford University), Lari’s early life was steeped in suave intellectual discourse. Her husband, Sohail Lari’s eclectic insight into history, economics, and politics played a crucial role in expanding her worldview. Their tiny Oxford home, a rather bohemian establishment became a hub of intellects, artists, philosophers, where distinguished but then unknown visitors like Manmohan Singh would drop in to engage in deep conversations about philosophy, economics, and politics, all while sitting on makeshift furniture often made of books.

“We served the simplest of food,” Lari recalls, describing how even wealthy guests would sit on the floor, sharing meals and ideas. This environment of unpretentious intellectualism would later influence her architectural philosophy. Her homes in Pakistan continued with the books and artwork being the parameters of living spaces, and as soon as Sohail turned his attention towards research, it was time for Yasmeen to reflectively view her scope and take the road not taken. Untangling herself from the daily rigmarole of competitive landscape and pleasing the client, she decided to please the higher echelons of conscience. She draws the comparison between her largest project of FTC at 750,000 square feet that at most serves a few thousand people, to her mud baked stove design that now serves at least 10 million people on daily basis and is growing.

New to life that had evolved from the ‘sohni dharti’, she found herself comfortable under the sun, amidst the fields, and around the milieu that comprised the rural population of Pakistan. Building on four pillars of Zero carbon, Zero waste, Zero charity, and Zero cost, Yasmeen launched her blueprint for justice through simple design for the people of Pakistan.

The fifth element of ‘Zero poverty,’ she says, is the outcome of this quadrupled approach. Her philosophy has all the required sustainability paradigms built in by default, yet the actionable plans are simple and easy to do. This she feels is her strength. Yasmeen also emphasised self-reliance and co-creation, moving away from traditional charitable models toward sustainable community development.

Design, she says, has always been at the centre of civilisations. “In fact, it is the design element that distinguishes a civilisation from an unruly settlement. Whether it was the Mayas, Aztecs, Sumerians, Egyptians, or our very own Indus Valley, their lives were shaped by the designs that had given those homes, transport, and farming. With industrialisation and capitalism, architecture gained a vain arm and became a symbol of success rather than functionality. And in doing so lost out on the greater good affect, as most of the brilliant minds joined the rat race.”

Yasmin’s design element includes:

Spatial Justice: Ensuring equitable access to well-designed spaces.

Economic Justice: Creating architecture that empowers rather than impoverishes.

Cultural Justice: Respecting and incorporating local traditions and practices.

Ecological Justice: Minimising environmental impact while maximising social benefit.

Flood proof housing, bamboo construction, mud baked element, oral literacy, and self-driven communities, are all hallmarks for the villages that have taken the turn around with Yasmeen’s Zero Poverty campaign.

The villagers now speak differently. From ‘What to do?’ they have comfortably progressed to ‘How we need to do this.’ Whether it is cultivating previously arid land through rain water harvesting, or newly dug channels to extract underground water, or painting their village centre with birds and flowers to invite nature back to their life, or self-constructed rooms for schools for their children to learn language and math, or mud plaster ‘choolahs’ that have brought the element of home making by pulling the culinary element into one niche space in each house.

Today, Lari’s influence extends beyond physical structures. She actively engages with students and women architects, sharing her knowledge through initiatives like the winter school at BRAC University. Her charismatic leadership draws architects and students from around the world to Punho village, where they learn practical applications of sustainable architecture. Any time of the year, you can find Australian, American, Danish, Spanish, English students of architecture and design working hand in hand with the villagers over roofs, and under trees. They have no qualms about the heat in the air, or dust in their breaths. They come here to learn from the living legend Yasmeen and take her commitment to sustainability as their takeaway from this very earthy fanfare.

Yasmeen’s work exists within a rich architectural heritage of Pakistan, from Company Bahadur era’s functional buildings to the neo-classical influences of the pre-Victorian period. She recognises architecture’s historical role as a tool of governance and connection, exemplified by structures like the Mohatta Palace and KMC building. She is also candid about the so called ‘builder’ approach to city development, which has greatly compromised social improvement and community empowerment.

For Yasmeen, architecture is not merely about creating buildings but about establishing democratic norms and ethical practices in design. She advocates for an architectural ‘Hippocratic Oath’ - a commitment that whatever architects create should not harm anyone. This principle guides her work in creating sustainable, community-driven projects that transform lives while respecting environmental and social justice.

Through her journey from elite education to grassroots activism, Yasmeen showcases architecture as a tool for social justice, proving that sustainable design and community empowerment can go hand in hand in creating a more equitable world.

*Howard Roark is a fictional architect in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel ‘The Fountainhead’.

The author is an educationist, researcher, and a corporate host. She can be reached at Shahatariq67@gmail.com