 Good evening everyone. I'm so delighted to welcome you all to tonight's very special lecture to hear from Yasmine Larry and learn more about her truly inspiring work as an architect and an entrepreneur. Tonight's lecture was pre-recorded. The reason was the time difference. It's 3 a.m. in Karachi, but also it's Yom Kippur and I also wanted to note that with an environmental consciousness that is so central to Larry's work, this lecture would have been much more difficult and environmentally harmful had it not been remote. So all these things are coming together in a beautiful way. In many ways, Yasmine Larry's trajectory is one that registers and models in the most urgent and inspiring ways. The trajectory that architects and architecture should take today. She's Pakistan's first female architect and among the best known architects of the country. After graduating from the Oxford School of Architecture, now Oxford Brooks University, Larry opened her practice Larry Associates in 1964. She was elected to the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1969 and has built several outstanding landmark buildings in Pakistan, such as the Abban Amrubank in Karachi. Her work has been widely praised. She's considered one of the pioneers of brutalist architecture and her projects were included in a Fyadon Books collection of the best buildings of the 20th century. This early success is what I believe she has referred to in some of her recent interviews as her stocky deck base. In 1980, her interest slowly turned away from new construction to the question of preservation. Larry co-founded the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan dedicated to research and the safeguarding of Pakistan's cultural heritage with her husband, the noted historian, Suhail Zahir Larry. Through her work, several historic monuments in the world heritage sites of Makli and Lahore Fort are conserved. In 2016, for example, with support from UNESCO and the Republic of Korea Funds and Trust, Larry led the revitalization of ancient glazed tiles and sin project for which her firm worked to complete the 16th century tomb of Sultan Ibrahim while imparting ceramic making skills to poor communities, especially women for income generation. Today, and as a result of the sequence of the earthquakes, floods, and conflicts that have taken hold across Pakistan since 2005, affecting especially the most vulnerable people in rural areas, Larry has dedicated her energies, her practice and extensive knowledge and experience to working with communities to develop adaptive and resilient buildings. She sees her clients, the communities, as partners with whom she can engage in the process of co-creation. A sharp critic of the quote universal solutions that are all too often offered by aid agencies and the siloed ways in which they work, as well as the urbanization mindset that is imposed on rural communities, Larry insists instead that responses should follow, as she says, forms based on age old wisdom. This has meant rediscovering traditional modes of construction and creatively combining them with contemporary approaches to modularity or to exploring raising techniques so that communities and structures can withstand rising waters, as well as reinventing the ways in which cheap and environmentally low impact materials such as bamboo, mud, and lime are combined to produce the most cutting edge, low cost, zero carbon and zero waste structures. Beyond the elegance and intelligence of the work itself, it is the way in which the process itself reinforces its beauty, the confluence that we are all exploring the semester. At the intersection of ethics and aesthetics, it is a process of deep care expressed through sensitivity, raw architecture and building that brings together the human and the natural, the individual and the collective so that we can not only imagine but actually experience a different way of being in the world. As Larry noted recently, lamenting that, quote, the elite that will never help the poor, lamenting the elite that will never help the poor, a process of co-creation can be a crucial part of healing, the kinds of large-scale ruptures that we're experiencing in so many areas. As she said, disasters can be truly devastating and people easily fall into deep depression, but if you give them something to do, it really helps with recovery, something people have helped to make is much more valued than something simply given. Please join me in welcoming Yasmeen Larry and as well as our very own Ateya Koyakewala, who will offer a response this evening. I'm so excited to be hearing her speak. Thank you. So, hello there. Greetings from Pakistan. Thank you so much, Dean Amwail Andrews, for your invitation, especially as you are known for bringing real-world problems to the forefront. And thank you for your lovely introduction. I'm delighted to be able to discuss issues that are closest to my heart with young designers studying at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation that is known as the Finest Design School in America. I just wish I was able to see you all, but all of us, even at my age, have to learn to live with COVID-19 and its implications. As we know, this is a virus that knows no borders, one that underscores fragility of human life with no assurance of safety due to our wealth or status or how many designer objects we might possess. It reminds us that we all need to assume the guardianship of Earth's resources. I'm optimistic that the realization brought about by the pandemic and the light that so many young people, such as yourselves, are shining on racism and institutionalized discrimination will lead to the fashioning of a more equitable world. As we know, in the last few months, disparities have risen exponentially around the world. I believe that today Baza or Barefoot Social Architecture that I founded some years ago has greater relevance, especially its tenets that underscore aspects of social and ecological well-being and adoption of sustainable eco-solutions as part of design strategies. As you're probably aware, until 2000 I was a practicing architect and barring a few projects I had indulged in an extravagant egotistic journey which focused on serving the elite of my country, which meant that, you know, I use highly energy-consumptive materials, such as cement, steel, aluminum, reflective glass, and scores of other industrialized materials. You might also know that ever since the highly destructive 7.6-rector scale earthquake hit Pakistan in 2005, post-disaster development has enabled me to utilize on a large scale zero-carbon footprint materials consisting of earth, lime, and bamboo. So today I will not be showing you any pictures of my prima donna phase, although for many lectures in the past I did so. I remember when in 2016 I was asked by the RIBA to deliver a public lecture in London, which coincided with my bamboo women's center and stilts being shown at 66 Portland Place in the exhibition called Rising from Catastrophe, a distinct honor to be exhibited alongside sketches of a great master such as Christopher Wren of St. Paul's Cathedral. Prior to the lecture, a BBC correspondent called me and asked me about the theme of my presentation. I told him I will be talking about my work in earth and bamboo. The journalist scoffed at me and warned me that perhaps I was not aware the audience will consist of many eminent architects and did I think this was the right kind of topic for me to discuss. So for the last several years, it established my credibility as a bona fide star architect. To skeptical audiences around the world, I showed snippets of my iconic buildings fashioned out of concrete, steel, and reflective glass. Well, I have to say that I'm really pleased to tell you that I do not feel the need to do this anymore, as so many in many countries have become familiar with my barefoot theme espousing the case for social and ecological justice for the disadvantage. Now famous architect critic Oliver Wendwright quoted me correctly in his long article in the Guardian newspaper and he said, I was a star architect for 36 years, now I'm atoning, but this is what I believe this phase of my life is all about. So let me start with my slides and let me see if I can handle this presentation where there we are. Just bear me for a moment. Okay, we're getting there I think. So yes, all right. So the theme of my lecture is today is barefoot social architecture for healing the planet. And I just thought that maybe I can just talk a little bit about Heritage Foundation of Pakistan. I wanted to show you how my humanitarian architecture has fostered low carbon techniques in heritage conservation, while vernacular traditions of my country have helped me devise strategies for the marginalized. So on the left, you see the amazing 16th century tomb that was conserved at Muckley World Heritage site by us. And this is the largest Muslim necropolis in the world and you must come and see it sometime. On the right is the reconstructed earth masonry structure that we helped build after country wide floods of 2010, decorated by the rural housewife. So my presentation will be in three segments and you can see why barefoot social architecture of Bazaar, then what is barefoot social architecture, and the thirdly zero carbon approaches and eco urbanism. I first thought of just doing the first two segments and I thought, you know, maybe it's a good opportunity to talk about urbanism as well because it's impacting our lives so much. So today I would like to share with you my attempts to lower the carbon footprint in structures and to prevent greenhouse gas, the DIG emissions in my various undertakings. Also, there are three strands that you will be able to observe in my work. One is learning from tradition and heritage, second community engagement and third climate responsive design. Although I've devised these methodologies for marginalized communities living in LDCs or less developed countries, but my hope is that these approaches will be relevant all around the world. For many countries in the global south, in the face of high poverty levels, then democratization of architecture and adoption of participatory approaches have become essential, I believe. But the industrialized world equally needs to be conscious of the cost that has to be paid to sustain prevalent modes of living and building, which as we know are resulting in fast depletion of planless resources. My economist Dr. Howard Frederick reminds us and I quote, since the industrial revolution in the late 18th and 19th and early 19th centuries, many business entrepreneurs around the world have simply plundered and exploited the environment in ignorance without any thought for sustainability. And this has been really the biggest problem for all of us. On the one hand, now the scenario appears chaotic and unmanageable. On the other, it opens up unfold untold prospects to create design alternatives for fulfilling the emergent needs of the planet. As a result, I've been able to eck out numerous design opportunities unclaimed before in the pursuit of fulfilling the exigencies of social and ecological justice. So first, let's see why barefoot is social architecture. So I want to provide you with the context which has led me to devise the particular stratagem of Bazaar. And firstly, I just wanted to share with you that Pakistan is the custodian of rich and diverse heritage as you see on the left dating back to the Bronze Age and it includes tangible, intangible as well as vernacular heritage. And if you go through this slide, the picture on the left and the notes, you will see that we start from Bronze Age and go on to Hindus, Buddhists in Gandhara and Sikh monuments and Sultana period sites, Mughal palaces, and then of course the British colonial period as well. So there's a huge array of heritage that we do have. And then there's the intangible heritage of Sufi traditions and spiritualism, folklore, folk traditions, oral history, diverse crafts and vernacular traditions also which are very, very strong, which are really use of materials around you and so on. And this is what's really I think impacted the way that I work today. And secondly, Pakistan is also among those nations that are struggling to keep up with the SDGs or sustainable development goals because of high poverty levels and low levels of education and healthcare. And then the climate change has impacted us severely. We are probably the third highest vulnerable countries with recurring disasters as a result of climate change as it lies on several fault lines and in the path of immense melting glaciers. And you can see that from 2005, we've just had so many of floods and earthquakes that it's been really impossible to deal with everything. And then I thought I should also share with you with the building industry consumption of materials, what's happening today. So there's something like, I mean, the estimates vary, but I just wanted to show you the damage to the environment due to the use of popular industrialized materials that are used in contemporary construction around the world. The 40% of world energy, 16% of world water usage, 3 billion tons of raw material and a huge waste stream. And then also, you know, consumptive materials like steel and Portland cement and ceramic brick even. So we have to be really looking at these particular aspects when we are designing because everything we do all obviously has an impact. And then I also wanted to show you what the international models are that are given out to us. Like this is a burnt brick one on the left by an international agency after the floods and sin. And when Magnus, who was an advisor to DFID, I think when he calculated for 100,000 one room shelters, he found that, you know, deforestation would be to the order of 50,000 770 acres for 10 years. And so burnt brick really should not be used at all. And then I also thought I'll share with you that you know the international aid culture. I mean, during the last 15 years as I was engaged in providing humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of displaced people, I realized that the present international aid system and the Western charity models are entirely unsustainable and must be discarded. We really should not be following these things because they are not working and they're destroying, you know, the environment and cultural aspects and in all kinds of things that are really should not be accepted by countries at all. And then this whole issue of social justice and humanistic architecture. A question that I've raised with architects around the world beginning at RIBA auditorium in London in 2016 at McGill University in Montreal, at RMIT University in Melbourne, Bukoku and Tokyo in Japan, twice in Tokyo actually at the Biennale at Oslo and in Vienna, Victorian Albert museums in London and Dundee, Battersea Art Centre and the Barbican in London. The last one that I did was in March of this year and and to thousands of live audiences from around the world through over a dozen Zoom lectures and scores of webinars in the past three months. And I asked the young designers present here today. And this is the question. Should architects continue to be an instrument in the hands of the 1% who the famous French economist Thomas Piketty says have accumulated the most wealth. This is a recurring question and I put it to you, put it to everybody because I think we need to really rethink our position in society and the environment that we have today. And then must we inspire only to become prima donnas creating star projector for the for the select few, however much damage it may cause to the earth. And that too in a world where one in eight persons goes to bed hungry every night. As we know, way back in 1987, the Brundtland Commission report had emphasized sustainable development, and in particular meeting the needs of the world's poor. While Paul Hawkins seminal book a decade later in 1999, had warned us about how the excessive use of resources is threatening the earth's future uses. Today, all of us are confronted with enormous disparities within our societies, yours and mine. The impact of global warming, climate emergencies and recurring disasters, climate change, migrants and conflict impaled camps for the displaced. And now the debilitating impact of COVID-19. So I ask you today, can architects play a role in mending the imbalances that we see around us and stitching this highly damaged earth tapestry. So I come to now to my second segment, which is what is barefoot social architecture. So last year, when I was delivering my keynote during the Vienna Biennale on the theme of the broken planet and the use of my barefoot model as a mechanism for healing the planet, I found that many in the audience were perplexed and asked, why barefoot? And I had to respond, it is because the work I do today is with people who walk barefoot. They have no shoes. I had overlooked that in African countries, nobody is used to people walking without shoes. And so of course, in my country, a vast number are barefoot because of lack of resources. But walking barefoot also has its reconvences. It helps you to tread lightly on the planet and use earth's resources judiciously. Sometimes it's a good idea to just walk barefoot on the sand or on the grass. It was the interaction with poverty-stricken vulnerable populations that forced me to dispense with my highly inflated ego. I, like every other architect, was insufferable, obligating me to swallow the bitter pill of humility by sitting at the threshold of the poor, exploring their age-old practices. Learning from Pakistan's pre-industrial vernacular heritage, I understood that design is not a standalone activity. It must be underpinned by considerations of social impact and ecological sustainability. I also understood that there are greater deficits. When there are greater deficits, you need more design, not less. And it is only good designers that can fulfill that void. And that's where I miss architects working in the humanitarian field. They don't seem to be enough of them there. Today my life's mission is to find ways to build for the other 99% of our populations as well as to deal with climate change impact by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the dictum I follow is low-cost, zero-carbon footprint, zero waste. Everything that I'm designing, whatever I design, this is uppermost in my mind as to how we are actually dealing with the design issue. So now I'm sharing this slide with just to show that between 2011 and 2018, we were able to actually serve something like 0.84 million people by providing them with shelter and water and forests and sanitation, etc. And that is something like almost 100,000 per year. And this can be done if the cost is low and we make everything affordable for people and they can design well. So now to define Bazaar, therefore, social architecture is akin to social engineering for bringing about social change, incorporating environmental, cultural, and technical dimensions resulting in transformation of mindset from a cycle of dependency to a culture of pride and self-reliance. On the one hand, Bazaar seeks to democratize architecture that provides people with well-being and self-esteem. On the other, it has partiality for zero-carbon footprint using ubiquitous earth, conservators, magic lime, and renewable bamboo. As you might know, these are the only three materials that I use in my work today. So there are four tenets to Bazaar. And the first is maximizing the potential of barefoot ecosystem. Secondly, zero-carbon humanistic architecture fostering pride, dignity, and well-being. Thirdly, delivery of unmet needs by barefoot incubator for social, good, and environmental sustainability called biscus. And then fourthly, adoption of non-engine structures for shrinking the ecological footprint. Now, so this is tenet one. And you can see from this graphics that this is a barefoot ecosystem that consists of barefoot economy, barefoot market, barefoot enterprises, barefoot entrepreneurs, barefoot skills, and barefoot products. And these are all there, but they're all overlooked because people don't think that the poor can do anything. But you know, we really have to not put more faith in people and know that they have the capabilities, only we were there to help them out. So we know that the prevalent, the highly consumptive market economy and market intensive societies pursuing material gains have in any case not benefited the underprivileged. I mean, we just haven't got there to them. Since as Carnegie Mellon, Professor Irwin points out that there are only, and I quote, motivated by the desire for profit and economic growth rather than human fulfillment. And maybe we have to start seeing how we can, you know, have a win-win situation where we might be able to do both. The Chilean economist Max Neve proposes that for barefoot economy to flourish, and I quote, it is the realization of needs as objective that becomes a motor of development which leads to the fulfillment of local desires and wishes. Thus, in contrast to the market economy, a barefoot economy promotes human-centered development, itself being regenerated by low-cost products that weave nature with age-old vernacular techniques contributing to a more equitable lifestyle. And you can see here how we can be maximized the barefoot ecosystem if we understand that all these aspects are there for us to be able to capitalize on. So now, believe it or not, all these do feed into a massive barefoot ecosystem and the poor, you know, outnumber the wealthy in many countries, especially mine as well. And unfortunately, this particular aspect has been overlooked by economists and politicians alike. It has the potential to function by itself as a parallel economy distinct from market economy through an enabling process of serving and sharing with the other disadvantaged populace. So whatever everybody does, if that can be shared by the other poor people, then you really have a situation where people start having a much better quality of life. So working with marginalized communities in the last years has allowed me to adopt a bottom up approach, encouraging different uses of funds and resources, efficient use of funds and resources, rights-based development, knowledge sharing through training and guidance for cost-effective output. So now we come to the 10-8-2, which is zero-carbon humanistic architecture, fostering pride, dignity, and well-being. In my work, I follow two gurus. One is the Lyme Guru, Marcus Vitruvius, first BC Roman architect that you must all know about and his book, The Architecture, or 10 Books of Architecture, and of course, the Earth Guru, which is Hassan Fatehi, the 20th century Egyptian architect and author of Architecture for the Poor. So let's look at Lyme Guru, Marcus Vitruvius. So today I'm bound by his four elements of air, water, earth, and fire as limits of architecture. In his extensive treaties, he defines all bodies as being composed of four elements and I quote, those with larger portion of air are soft, or water are tough from the moisture, of earth hard, and of fire more brittle. Thus the alchemy of natural elements addresses the bounds of sustainability, spanning the spheres of economic, social, moral, and cultural aspects. I believe that the use of these elements leads us to the confines of democratic norms and behavior. And then of course, the second one, the great Guru Hassan Fatehi, and as Hassan Bey would have it, I'm also conscious at all times of the obligation to be close to nature and to the people and to traverse a path which would unleash the creativity of the common folk. Using their intangible reserves of ancient wisdom, it must as they are in their folklore, oral histories, and craft traditions, the so-called vernacular expression. You can see that Hassan Fatehi was talking about the poor almost a century ago when nobody had ever thought of them, and that's really something fantastic. So, and then, well, I'm sort of advocate of zero carbon as you know, and so as far as my work is concerned, I consider myself an advocate of earth, lime, and bamboo, as I said earlier, as among the most sustainable materials, which are the only materials I use in my work today. As you might be aware, clay does not have to be burnt in fire to gain strength. You do not have to fire it. The combination of earth, water, and sunlight provides a building material of great value. The ever-present earth is most freely available and one that is most used around the world by the poor, very little by architects. The second material is lime. It is hewn as a rock, which the alchemy of fire transforms into an unparalleled force that has provided strength to the Roman aqueducts and the impregnable 16th century mobile forts. Once common earth and lime are mixed together, water provides a strength that can be not be surpassed by any other material and the least by Portland cement. I mean, a lot of people who work in preservation and so many of you must be working in heritage conservation must know the value of lime and why is it that is being discarded? This is something that we have to think about and how contemporary architects should start now replacing cement with lime. So lime also absorbs carbon from the air through what is known as the lime cycle comprising sequence of change in the form from burning, slaking, and hardening, and returning to the original carbonate form. The third material is bamboo, which is among the most important elements for climate change mitigation and adaptation as it stores carbon. Nurtured by soil and water, it has incompatible characteristics. It provides a crop every two to three years and is among the largest renewable resources. The quality of its resilience is extraordinary and it has become the mainstay of all my work that I do. There's nothing that I built which does not have bamboo in it. In fact, all three materials actually. So now when I was giving a public lecture in Tokyo a few years ago on the occasion of receiving the highly prized Japanese Fukuoka Award for Arts and Culture, a member of the audience questioned me asking how long did I think bamboo would last? My answer was in Pakistan, I thought perhaps 25 years, but ever since I visited the beautiful Kumamoto Castle after the earthquake in Japan, it can last for 400 years. I saw that beautiful bamboo inside the structure when the plaster had come off. So this is how bamboo can work. Some examples of humanistic architecture as a result of co-building and co-creation I'd like to present to you. So this is like again earth walls and bamboo roofs and you can see this is co-building for really for pride and the way the women are decorating them. And then these are some others also again bamboo basic frame and then earth plaster, earth and lime plaster. This is for identity and dignity and on the right you see an echo toilet that's where that's that's what we are trying to build in large numbers in Pakistan. And then this is the world happy thought winner earthen Pakistan Chula stove. Now you see these decorated housing stoves have been achieved due to a large-scale participation of women. 60,000 of the earthen Pakistan Chula have been built and have contributed and women have contributed fully to the construction of over 40,000 zero carbon one room houses. And you can see how they use the creative skills themselves and how they you know beautiful they make everything. That's why I believe in co-building and co-creation. So sorry just going back incidentally one team of barefoot entrepreneurs who helped build 30,000 of the stoves has earned 40,000 US dollars over four years or 10,000 per year when the original income was only $400 a year. So that's where the potential of the barefoot market is if you have trained people who can go around they can make a huge amount of money. I'm hoping many of them will become millionaires very soon. So okay so today I'm no longer interested in being recognized as the author of my works the barefoot social architecture that I practice creates a blank canvas which relies on the participatory process which facilitates ordinary people to utilize their creativity particularly women bringing to life unique artworks. And sorry going back to that again as you can see how would I call it my creation when each woman has endowed it with attributes that take the work beyond architecture and in the realm of public art. And this is what's really an eye-opener had been for me as well when I started to work how everybody participated and how you know their own creative energy came to fore. All right so now we go to Basatana 3 which is delivery of unmet needs through barefoot incubator for social good and environmental sustainability. Now this is called BISCAS which helps to train monitor and mentor the poorest communities to fabricate products for the other poor in order to fulfill their unmet needs. So the BISCAS trainings have helped to attain rights-based development consisting of one safe room house, a shared echo toilet, shared water supply and Pakistan Tula for clean food for very small amount of money. And this is something that a model that I'm hoping that we can really spread all over Pakistan if not elsewhere also. And then this is again the other end met needs of the poor. It shows production of affordable items being produced in specialized villages to cater to the unmet needs of the other poor. These are all marketed around you know the villages where they're being produced. We do not target the rich for these products at all. So last year 230 former beggars drawn from eight villages were trained in green skills and crafts for livelihoods. Each village specializes in affordable good quality products consisting of green construction materials such as earth, lime, bamboo and tach, organic soap, organic compost and natural fuel briquettes that they use for the Pakistan Tula stoves, the earth stoves. And then climate smart farming for food security, craft products for everyday use for achieving a better quality of life. And in the project 70 percent rose above the poverty line within about 14 months. As you see there is a whole range of products that are needed for the poor to survive as long as they're available at affordable prices. And this is I just wanted to show this training center. It's called the Zero Carbon Cultural Center or ZC3. And incubated trainings are carried out in this huge bamboo marquee structure, 57 feet wide, 80 feet long and 27 feet high. It's all bamboo. There's just no other material in this and this has served very well indeed. And then there's some more slides just to show you the interior of it and where you enter it. And then again these are the trainings that are going on and as you can see they're mostly women, they're men too, but we really focus on women a lot. And then there's another slide which shows the products that they're making which is to do with the gashi or the or glazed ceramics. And they also do very good terracotta work as well. And then I just wanted to show you that the same marquee then doubles up as an international conference center as we did last year as an intubar international conference was held in last November in the place. And these are the logs or the lodges that we built for our delegates who had come, the international delegates who arrived there and stayed at McLean for the conference. And then so you can see that this is something that is working and we are getting really good results. So my barefoot social architecture actually is giving us good dividends. Now we come to the last tenet which is a parter tenet four which is two but non-engineered structures for shrinking the ecological footprint. You see in most engineers are not willing to look at these things because they think they cannot calculate. So this is the big problem and we have to really now convince the engineering community that we need people who can work with these materials and tell us that yes they will be safe. But then of course there are other methods like using a shaking table test which I will show you how we did on one of them. And so this non-engineered structure, this one have placed Pakistan in the lead as the largest zero carbon shelter program in the world. As you see no carbon emissions, no trees were felt, 1750 villages were served and 300,000 persons were housed. And again the materials are only locally sourced clay, low energy line and renewable bamboo. And then I just thought I'll show you this because this activity was done by Al Jazeera and this shows is a double story. The water has come. So and then I thought I'll show you this one because this is really a prefabricated, it is based all on prefabricated panels which are only about five feet by about eight feet. And I just thought I'll show you how it can be assembled very quickly and can be of different configurations. So this is the first one which gives you a 12-foot by 12-foot room like the lodges that you show that you saw for the delegates and it can be put up you know as I said less than a day. If you add two more panels you can make it into about 18 foot by 12 foot and becomes a classroom in a village. And again if you add on two more then it becomes what we now call the interval center. It's about 18 foot by 18 foot room. So it's fabulous you can keep on adding on and it's very easy to construct and because of Muckley we've learned how to make domes in bamboo which we did not before. And so there's always you know you keep on learning more and more about the material as you explore more and that is the beauty of this kind of work. And this I just wanted to show you the 12-foot rooms how they can be you know put together in the form of a beehive and they become lodges for people to come and stay or for instance this becomes the interval center when you add on more panels. This is the interval training and resource center built using prefabricated bamboo panels. It is dedicated to His Royal Highness Prince Charles in acknowledgment of his support to our work as he himself is a great proponent of zero carbon structures. And so that's very good to have his support because he does talk about this also and I want champions for zero carbon. So now this is actually an entirely a structure which is which is proof to be earthquake proof and I'll show you how but I just thought very quickly if we can run through it to see how lime concrete in the foundation and then basically sunrise bricks and then we build in at every every so often these bamboo lattices so that whole structure can get tied together and we also use bamboo reinforced lime concrete for the ring beam as you can see that this is bamboo and the ring beam and then you put lattices on the two sides also so you tie the whole thing together and you get a structure that's literally survives any kind of an earthquake and I'll show you how in the next one. So this is really the protocol of the for the shaking table test which was it was done at the NAD University 50 percent of the scale model and we started off with 25 percent and go on to 100 percent of Kobe earthquake at the simulations of the movement and then 125 percent to 275 percent and nothing happened to it and then they said you know the vice chancellor was there and he said we've got to break it so they went on to 670 percent and I'll show you how this happened because I want to feel like I'm I'm you know really constantly promoting and marketing bamboo so this is really the protocol of the earthquake and then now we are now at 275 percent more than the earthquake happened right and now they say but let's try to see how we can break it and they really have to stop because the you see it survives it survives all these so many of these jokes earthquake jokes and so there's life safety issue with this kind of structure all right so I just thought that while I was talking about my world maybe in your world there were some principles I came across by one click LCA I thought I'll just show them to you that these are also the good pieces of advice and this might help in thinking about lowering the carbon footprint it might be useful to consider them when you carry out your next design assignment you know you might be looking at things and saying well how is it that we can just lower the carbon footprint I know that you cannot get to zero carbon but at least you will be able to lower it and I think that's how we need to start so you can see from you know the time factor foundation structure material shape slabs parking you have to really minimize parking everywhere I think you should really try to minimize vehicles everywhere and walls and layers and windows and so on so there's good advice there if you'd like to maybe go through and see how you can use it all right so now we come to part three of my presentation which is zero carbon approaches to eco-urbanism now in my view New York with its highest infection rate and its high carbon high density glittering skyscrapers will no longer be the urbanist future beacon I maybe you might not agree with me but this is what I feel after I've seen the results of COVID-19 what it how it's impacted New York and as we get accustomed to carrying out business remotely I'm optimistic that eco-urbanism will take root drawing upon age old wisdom and traditional environments found in countries such as Pakistan aiming for low-rise medium density formations with open to sky terraces for families to remain in contact with nature when a pandemic strikes with pedestrian enclaves and local around the corner shopping without being disrupted by vehicular traffic and I just thought I'll show you this particular model of Lahore of the old wall city of Lahore and a view an artist's view of how the streets have been and and you can see that this is really what we can call traditional sustainable urbanism with organic morphology pedestrian streets low-rise medium density development mixed 24-hour cycles zero low energy natural cooling passive solar design courtyard planning subterranean chambers water mass water mass cooling and semi-public space these are all attributes of such a city and then I thought I'll just present to you some of the examples of what's that we found in Pakistan which is you know several lessons that we could really drive from the past of zero energy natural devices which can provide comfortable micro climate within buildings without mechanical means that's bringing about additional benefits in search for eco-urbanist strategies so this is the one on the left is really the wind catchers of Tata these are zero energy wind cooling devices by unidirectional wind catcher where incoming breeze provides provides thermal control air movement as well as warm air exhaust and on the right you see a courtyard zero energy thermal comfort by utilizing passive solar design and thermal mass in this house in Peshawar the courtyard helps store cool air during the night keeping the intern the interior school for much of the day so there are these traditional ways of doing things which may well be quite useful even today and then on the left I wanted to show you zero energy water cooling devices and this is the Shalamar garden which is the wonderful kind of well-herited site of by the Mughals by Shahjahan and you can see that you know there's the Chahar Bagh or the Paradise Garden and spectacular water displays creating a cool environment entirely by natural means and then on the right is our the our fourth world heritage again where the pond actually creates the same kind of environment so there are these devices that we could be looking at so we should be aware that being responsible for 65 to 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions our urban centers will remain global warming battlegrounds unless urban professional device ways to convert them into eco cities we have seen that traditional urbanism is a result of local wisdom use of sustainable materials and techniques for minimizing the use of energy many of us believe that traditional urbanism equals eco urbanism and there is an urgent need to transform our present wasteful urban centers into low carbon eco enclaves so what does it mean and you can see this compact cities not urban sprawls low rise medium density mixed use development not skyscrapers vehicle free walkable enclaves greenery and water bodies for transforming urban microclimate low impact architecture minimum energy consumptive means prevent demolition of historic buildings there's no need to keep on rebuilding because that also requires a lot of energy so we have to avoid new constructions and then follow Oslo model for greenhouse gas at 2.51 per capita so these are the some of the examples that I wanted to bring to you and this last slide just says low cost zero carbon zero waste for saving the planet and the destitute around the world so I'll just now have just a few more sentences to say and just to wrap up so unlike the past I don't believe architects need to seek the patronage of the medities of Florence the merchant princes of industrial revolution or East India Company's robber barons nor today's powerful multinationals but there is huge potential for sustainable design solutions in areas with rising disparities climate change displacements conflict driven migrant camps or just underserved neighborhoods in most countries together we must endeavor to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as we fashion a new urban environment based on more sustainable lifestyles adopting movements such as transition design degrowth or low carbon compact cities which are becoming popular in the west and my own barefoot social architecture for sustenance of the disadvantage in the third world what if our urban centers are transformed into eco cities embodying the virtues of carbon neutral environment nature conservation and biodiversity enhancement and conversion of existing vehicular roadways into landscape forested walking streets or lowering pollution levels interventions that lead to better health and well-being of humankind because make no mistake human and planetary health will now take center stage I believe it is a time for all of us to use our design skills for creating zero or low carbon structures the ones that I built are small scale to cater to the needs of those at BOP bottom of the pyramid but these could equally be quite spectacular when innovative architects designed for the 1% who have accumulated the most wealth the zero carbon campus that I have set up provides training in zero carbon green construction and craft skills but taking the cue from COVID-19 as remote learning becomes popular we are developing a series of digital tutorials for step-by-step guidance which will allow a vast number of the marginalized and even the wealthy to learn to build do it yourself safe zero carbon structures I would like to welcome you all to our zero carbon campus in Muckley sometime but if the pandemic does not permit it it is my hope that universities will set up zero carbon workshops within campuses to enable students to become familiar with sustainable materials such as earth, lime and bamboo I'm concluding with the hope that you will all help me in this mission by becoming zero carbon champions thank you thank you so much over to you Atya hi Yasmin thank you so much that was wonderful it was wonderful to listen to to listen to you know you present this sort of long career of yours and the various transformations in it I think it's fascinating because you've had two careers in one life you know and both are really long like I think I was the you began the Heritage Foundation I think in 1980 which is which means that this second career has been in a sense even longer than that first one and I think one of the things that this means when you have this career spanning almost now you know 50 years is that one is that you sort of have you become a witness to history and I'm fascinated by that I'm I think it in a way it also reminds me of the fact that you know you are married to a historian and I'm sure that that in a way has shaped your approach to both history and your experience of history itself so you know beginning with that I want to kind of ask you questions about how this how you have in a way over time slowly developed what seems what I would call is some sort of a critique of capitalism because when you say this when you propose this idea of barefoot architecture a barefoot economy a barefoot ecology I think you called it what you mention is that your the word barefoot is a critique of consumption that we are consuming too much and how do we how do we undo our only experience of the world is an experience of consumption and in a sense that's how I understood your use of the word barefoot so I was also thinking about the shoe as a status symbol you know I was thinking about all of the nationalist tropes of runners representing the state wearing shoes and poor runners not having shoes to wear and therefore you know the kind of government has to provide shoes so that they can perform on the international stage in an equal way and so the shoe is a very complex fetishized commodity it's not a straightforward one so I can completely understand your barefoot concept as both a critique of consumption and also in a sense a critique of the state that demands a certain kind of conformity so that it can present itself and so I want to begin by asking you this question I have a bunch of questions and I'll get to them and I think I have some ideas of how I can ask questions that maybe that are not just my questions but also questions on behalf of other listeners of this talk but yeah my first question is how did you over time develop use history use a critique use history and use this arc of your career in which you witnessed history to develop a critique of capitalism it is very interesting because you know you are a historian yourself so you've come up with lots of sort of you know in-depth things that you've kind of noticed which a lot of people overlook and for that that's really really you know very nice also to hear what you see the thing is that all of us and most of us you know who are educated and really are very privileged and I don't think we've ever looked at others who have really had nothing and I in my life experienced all kinds of phases in my life you know and because of the earthquake I think that is really what was the critical moment where I think it really changed my perceptions about you know who we are what we are and what even the country is like and I understood then that you know we've been living in the cocoon most of us you know who are who consider themselves to be educated and you know we thought we knew everything but we really don't and I think it's always it's very sobering actually when you go around these poor localities poor people who think have nothing but they have this wealth of wisdom that you never had you never had known about it and I think that's really is as I said I've lost you know I mean I was quite insufferable and I lost my ego basically I now know I'm there's a lot of humility in the way that I approach things and I go there and learn from them and there is much to learn and really I think all of us have been part of this very highly consumptive society we all have thrived on that and we thought that is the best way to do it and then suddenly you know when especially things you know when you have disasters or COVID-19 appears well all this does not matter anymore and I think that is really something that all of us have to understand but also that you know what I say is that we have only have one planet really there's only one earth we have and we all have to be mindful how we treat it and this realization also has come much later to to me even you know because I was working in disasters I had no idea then suddenly I saw things being built which were actually adding to the whole problem because you know if you are cutting trees and doing emergency housing well what are you doing I mean this is international agencies who are doing this because there was no understanding and and so I think this is what I want this is my mission now is to make people understand that we have all of us have to take care of each other it is there's no such thing as you know you're kind of living in an ivory tower you cannot anymore so so hopefully that comes in and there's more humanism I think we'll have a better world thank you I want to sort of one of my favorite projects of yours is the Tula you know it's a beautiful object but I think that when I when I when I saw your Tula I think what's that your central innovation in the Tula was that instead of thinking of it as an object because the Tula has a very long history in the house in the village right and it's actually we know now from studies of the air quality is that it produces horrific amounts of pollution that women are breathing in as they cook and so it seems to me that this major innovation you made in the Tula is instead of thinking of it as an object as an industrial design you know product as something that you can acquire you thought of it as architecture you know that what struck me is that your Tula is so architectural it's it's a structure and you call it a pedestal you call it a throne you call it something that you know elevates the work of women and I am what I'm also fascinated by of course in all of this is your design process and so it would be wonderful to hear about how you interacted with the women who use this object to design this architectural to turn it into an architectural thing that then could be both designed and ornamented decorated you know become a real point of celebration instead of a point of pollution and you know destroying destruction of the body yeah no I'm glad that you like it because I think you know I think this probably the best thing that I could have ever done I mean I when I look at it and you know I look at Finance and Trade Center which is a 750,000 square feet of area and 2,000 people are there every day and so on and it's a huge huge structure and then I look at the Tula which is just tiny and little and really but the impact that's had is far greater than Finance and Trade Center could ever have so that's where the beauty of all this actually is and also that it evolved actually because there was we have a partner actually you designed the scientific part which is they call Park Swiss Technologies and he designed it some years ago and we discussed we wanted to promote it you know there's a lot of discussion on the stove because as you rightly say there's so much of you know the ill health and eye problems and chest issues and so on and then also because of the fire the open fire children get burned women get burnt and so on with their saris and the patas and everything so the stove is very important for women not so much for men but for women it's absolutely the most you know important thing in life so I wanted to do something and then this partner who helps us a lot and they came up with this idea but they had something which was done with break and it would be on the floor on the ground and so on and because I've been working in flood areas and no Mohenjo Daro I mean that's where everything comes actually from the past Mohenjo Daro is built on these platforms and I said well why not platforms for everything because that's how you save people and their life their you know belongings and everything so we had to have a platform and I was hoping that women will stand and cook at that so the platform was small and we had the children on it and they started but then I found no they wanted to sit and so the platform became bigger and bigger and then I found that they I mean we designed something like I said well a small one six foot by six foot would be okay but lo and behold they were 10 feet or 12 feet long and getting wider and wider because women started to use it for all kinds of things for doing their work they would sit there and children would gather around and stories were being told and suddenly it became a socializing place so it suddenly it just somehow took on so many more aspects than I had ever thought and then dignity for women that was the most important thing that happened because see if you are doing something you you make a structure but that can just serve a particular purpose but here there's the intangibles that came into force so the women once is she sitting on the throne the earthen throne suddenly her her respect for her you know it suddenly goes up among men in in society in our societies particularly so it's just incredible what's that's happened I mean the women are much bolder they stand they sit erect if you look at them sitting on the floor and cooking crouching and cooking and then they are sitting on this particular and each one is sitting absolutely erect with backs erect and that shows that you know they've suddenly found the confidence there's a lot of thing that happened with the chula you know I'm very pleased about it yeah it's it's amazing it's good yeah yes thank you you know the other so the chula that is the kitchen the rasoi gar in the live in within this sort of space of the home the heart is a very important piece of technology but the other really important piece of technology of course is the toilet and that's another thing you've worked on this is another space in which women are very vulnerable and in which it requires a real consideration of the dignity of the body so I was also very interested in the kind of technological innovation you've done in produce in making sure that toilets can be something that people can achieve and so I was watching your video of how the toilet is put together and I was struck by one layer just one simple layer of plastic you know for the roof and I thought that that was very interesting because plastic is an extremely important commodity it affords us so much value I mean we abuse it right as a as a world we abuse plastic in terms of how we use it as a single use product use and throw use and throw but on the other hand plastic has made the lives of poor the poor just bearable in a way you know by providing waterproofing by providing containers by providing so many things and it made me think about how your practice has really brought together many different strands of thinking it's not you know of course you have a theory of the past and how to retrieve knowledge and information from the past but it's not like you are rejecting modernity of the future and so I wanted to ask you about how you brought these different aspects together in your work yeah interesting question actually and I've not really thought about it much but looking at it I guess either because I'd practice as a as an architect for so many years so I do have knowledge about you know what is available and I do not reject anything you know just like that I have to think about it why I'm rejecting something but on the other hand I do want to use as much as possible local materials where I know that is what's available to the poor and it just actually you know it just happened that those there's a kind of synergy between you know what we find locally what is affordable what is really quite inexpensive and it's also like environmentally you know suitable and friendly and and appropriate so you have to find the right way of doing it because I know that if I had if I used on the roof just my matting and I do have this Barcelona finish on the top but still there are chances of eroding of erosion of the of the soil and then the water might leak so if you just put a layer which is buried in there and then you know the roof is good for years and years and again the toilet is for dignity of women because otherwise we are going into fields and I have to tell you I had no understanding of this when I went in 2005 to the earthquake area there were days I mean I would go for the day and there were no toilets and I couldn't understand how how women handled it and I asked them and they said well early morning before fudgel prayers that's early morning before the sun rises actually and then later and then late at night after the sun sets behind the bushes and in that cold weather with snow everywhere you have no idea I mean I just could not understand and so that's why I wanted now for everyone to have a toilet I mean that's my big desire now that someone can just spread toilets and my toilets are very inexpensive because we make them again with bamboo and earth and they are eco toilets we are teaching everybody how to actually make compost out of solid waste and so this is again you know no waste strategy so there's much that can be done and poor people are really ready to learn and you know they are if we can just get to them that's all that we need to do you know I mean your bamboo work the the bamboo work at the Makli cultural center the community center is just fabulous right it's beautiful the first time you see that you're like wow this is just such a beautiful frame and I was fascinated by how you spoke about that the use of knowledge in the design of that frame because I think one of the modernist imaginations of design is you know you have the architect the architect makes the design and then it goes to site and then somebody builds it and of course what you're talking about is how do you decentralize that process and so that's my question to you which is that what does it look like to work in a decentralized knowledge design model to use a decentralized model of knowledge and design you know of where we kind of source knowledge about how to make something and design together what does it look like when design actually becomes democratic and so to follow up on that question I'm also interested in what the architecture office looks like in a barefoot architecture model you know in a barefoot economy what changes in how the architecture office looks how the architecture office performs and to kind of complete that question how is it different from working with contractors you know we all sort of know that experience of working with contractors what is it like working in this other mode yeah it's very tough in the beginning you know I have to tell you that when I first went to the earthquake area and you know we just had drawings in our hands and didn't know what to do and how to get people going because it had to be done by people themselves and I'm not not very good at actually giving instructions as to how do you do the layout even because I've never done it in my life before but I learned quickly and and we managed to then work with people and say look you know this is the size and let's draw this and then we would all look at it and a lot of it was changed also you didn't you know there's nothing that you you sort of said if it got to be done in this particular way because you know you know you have to accept maybe a little bit skew maybe not quite you know level and so on and so you quickly learned that you know they are these are not defects they are as long as the building is stable that's perfectly okay so you know you accept that but also I found that people themselves are very interested in how the output was you know they were really proud of it once they started to work on it themselves and that is what struck me because you know I was also like all architects that if I've done a design it's got to be done perfectly in that way and of course there's no such thing there so a lot of it is just sketches a lot of it is just sitting down there with them and then laying them out and and just you know it's like like music like Eastern music like our music where you just keep on innovating you know you just innovate as you go along and and you can never fail because everybody's there and they want to make their own thing and that's fine you know so everything is different each one will be different from the other and that's good because you don't want a mass-produced system and even though my bamboo panels as you saw are really prefabricated but each one of the ones that when they build them they're different yeah so you never know that is the same thing and that's the beauty of of co-creation I think and democratization because that's where everybody's you know interest comes in and they can finish them as they wish I mean I don't say you must put something there as long as for me the most important aspect is that everything must be stable and that when the earthquake happens they should not collapse and when floods happen they should stay so that we ensure and and they know and everybody knows that for their own safety they have to do these things so it's yeah it's fun it's very interesting and yeah you you as I said you keep on innovating as you go along you you know keep on improvising yeah and just to sort of mention it again I I do think that sometimes the space of the architecture office can become a real space of exploitation right we have endurance we kind of have new graduates and we kind of load a lot of work on them and I imagine that in your model there must have been some change in that as well how the architecture office itself functions so I was wondering about your office because I'm you must be working between Karachi and Makhi right so there's some sort of movement to and fro there's people working on either and there's a logistics to this process that can sometimes be invisible yeah well basically of course we we act as you do normally as an architect I do a sketch and then somebody draws it up and then you know it's taken there and then we tell them and then you know it starts off and sometimes there are no drawings even because people have remembered what is to be done you have this barefoot entrepreneurs that we train then they're the ones who train everybody else as to how they should do it and they get paid for that that's how our Champa who's our icon for the stoves she she made so much money I mean you know $10,000 a year is a pretty good amount in this country a huge amount actually so they're the ones that we are training these are my intermediaries who can then go and work with others because if you're doing something on large scale obviously we can't be there but now with my videos that we are making I'm hoping that everybody can have them on their cell phone and they can just build them and that's that's really would be would be so we are trying to put on everything possible in that so because it's all digital so we can we are putting in within that animations and sketches and all kinds of things so that people can just watch and do it yeah I hope so one of my one of my last questions that I have is that you know when you talk about the response the effect of climate change in terms of the disasters that Pakistan has seen and the way in which your practice responded in terms of disaster relief I was really interested by how you've not only set up a design practice but a huge logistics effort right all of these designs have to also reach the places where they can make where they can make this where they can be then implemented and so I was really interested to understand that network that you've created I'm sure that that also took very long that was a very has now become a complex sort of machinery of its own and so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that supply chain you know that you have produced through your work yeah it's a first of all I have to tell you that I had retired by that time so I had no office when I went up to in 2005 I went up to the earthquake area I had no staff literally there were just a couple of people working on heritage I think I was in Lahore as UNESCO's national advisor at the time so I was sitting in the Lahore fort and then this immense tragedy happened to happen to the country and like everybody else I thought I'd just have to go there I didn't know what I could do I knew doctors could be helpful but I had no idea what an architect could do and I'd never done any humanitarian work before in my whole life I'd seen my parents involved in somewhere but you know nothing nature and so I asked my husband I discussed with him and he said you know you're crazy or what will you do how will you go and anyhow so then he said okay 500,000 is all that you know all right I spare 500,000 that you take it so I took that money and I went and I had no transport I had no workforce I had no idea I had no materials nothing and arrived in this dead of night and you know mountainous terrain which I'd never worked in before but you know what is amazing with humanitarian work that help comes very swiftly to you I had no idea and so I got so many volunteers from all over the world because somebody just published somewhere and you know I mean just amazing some people came from Sharjah from the American school some came from from Scotland from the Mackintosh school I mean kids and their teachers and from all over the world literally and architects and from Pakistan itself so they became my arm because I done a sketch and we done the drawings and we done some posters and we thought of a mobile kind of activity that we should go around everywhere telling people and these kids and young people went up climbing mountains and 120 villages you know we just did it and we were all there and we're just working away and it was just incredible and so that is the feeling that's remained because it is humanitarian work it is you're there for the service you know of the people so you you know you just have to work in that way so we I don't have a very small my organization is very very small we work through all these people that we train and they go around and train others and and carry on and we get we get luckily quite a lot of support so you know as we get the support whatever we have to do I design something I want to do different things every time so we keep on you know somehow you know whatever can be stretched we keep on stretching like you know we never knew how to make domes and now we can do bamboo domes and and all kinds of bamboo things that I never thought we could do so and the center is there and there are lots of people working there who are we've trained and there are lots lots of beggar communities that are now working so it's just spreading by itself literally you know really is I know this office it's all everything is very small we work on the way I mean I've never had a very large office I don't want too many people but the ones were there are dedicated and we all work hard and it gets done um one also yeah no it sounds it sounds like it's a very inspirational space um and I guess you know you've spoken a little bit about how how what challenges we're now coming up against given this COVID-19 situation um and this pandemic my question is how um um how do we therefore by the time the pandemic hits it's already too late in a way the work you have done has laid a foundation for a kind of response and the pandemic is such a different kind of disaster because it's um so widespread you know it's not something that you can kind of go somewhere and respond immediately and so in that sense you know to kind of round out all of these questions and perhaps you could see a little bit about um the way in which this pandemic is challenging us obviously you know you cannot suddenly magically provide a solution that's not what I'm asking but how um this how we are sort of thinking about the work we have done and where it's turning in the face of this these new challenges well of course it's a very pertinent question but I think all of us I mean all around the world now everybody's affected by this pandemic and I think there are perhaps two um separate categories if you like or separate issues that we have to deal with one is the urban situation which requires a great rethink now because whatever has been done I don't think it's working um I mean we know what's happened so I think you know that's a field that people have to now start looking at to see how to as I said you know how you make a create a humanistic environment where people are able to do things um in the sense that you know I mean families can't be cooked up in in multi-story housing uh you have to have open spaces and really why do we need so many vehicular streets so we have to really you know we know that you can do without them as well so and so but my more of my concern obviously is the rural areas and I think the pandemic tells us that we need to create better hygienic conditions for those people which means better shelter that means better sanitation uh I mean they must have you know water and and just the basic necessities and that is possible with very little amount of money if they follow if anybody if any government does follow what I'm saying because people with co-building the costs are really minimum you know I mean because they're no contractors and people put their own labor into it and they find all and the materials we use are locally available like that you can just go and cut the grass and make your thatch roof so if you know how to make it well that's all that's needed and if you want to make a mud wall well the earth is around you they only need to be told how you can do it better and that's what my I'm hoping my tutorials my videos will tell them so that they're able to just do it right so that means disaster preparedness which is something that must be we must all be thinking about because you know at the time disaster happens you go around saying okay let's do emergency things and it never really works out the next disaster we are back to square one so disaster preparedness is key to everything and pandemic of COVID-19 obviously shows that we need to have I mean in rural areas social distancing is possible but they have no places to live in so we need to provide that so that they are able to live comfortably and that means that they'll be less you know the infection rate will be less and so on and so on so there's plenty that can be done with very and I really am I believe I'm believer in really very small amounts of money I don't believe in I got the chance of putting up so many thousands because internationally there was a donor fatigue and this particular organization called IOM wanted to deliver these these results and they did not have enough funds so then they thought of me and they said well you know she's in the hospital is doing something with Lyme and so on that's how I got the chance so I'm a great believer in really no money and I would like my everything that I do should be just you know zero cost I mean that's that's what I would like to and then it can get to everybody so that's what we have to do now I mean I think that's a wonderful note to kind of round out our conversation thank you so much for speaking with us today thank you thank you so much well I really enjoyed that so wonderful thank you thank you bye