In flood-hit southeastern Pakistan, villagers are trading tents and tarpaulins provided by aid agencies for local materials such as lime, mud and bamboo to build their own low-cost and water-resistant homes as part of a post-disaster recovery rethink.
Designed by Yasmeen Lari - Pakistan’s first certified female architect - about 1,000 such houses have been built in Sindh province following unprecedented floods last year that submerged about a third of the country and killed at least 1,700 people.
While traditional mud huts are vulnerable to extreme weather and building concrete homes is expensive and high in carbon emissions, Lari’s houses were devised to be disaster-resilient, environmentally friendly, and quicker and easier to erect. Lari used to design modern, glitzy buildings - from hotels and offices to government headquarters - made from concrete, glass and steel, but turned to sustainable relief architecture in 2005 after an earthquake devastated much of Kashmir.
She said her NGO (Heritage Foundation of Pakistan) has helped survivors of natural disasters in Pakistan to build about 55,000 homes, 4,500 of which have been erected since the floods that started last June. Her aim is to ultimately provide homes for at least 350,000 households.
A spokeswoman for the World Bank in Pakistan, Mariam Altaf, said the institution was aware of the need for more sustainable and affordable housing options, especially those that can create local employment opportunities and support local economies. However, Altaf said permanent brick and mortar houses are more resilient housing options than mud-based ones as they will be better able to withstand natural disasters.
This was echoed by Najaf Khan Malik, Chief Operating Officer of the Sindh People’s Housing Foundation (SPHF) - which was established by the Sindh government to build new homes in flood-hit areas. Malik said the SPHF wanted to use ‘flood resilient sustainable construction material’ like burnt bricks and cement but avoid using mud - citing its own study which found that 75 per cent of the 2 million homes washed away in Sindh were made of mud.
At first glance, the homes designed by Lari resemble traditional village architecture known in Pakistan as chauhras but their seemingly simple exteriors mask innovative designs, inspired by indigenous building techniques from rural Pakistan but re-engineered to not only stop the houses from being flooded, but make them more sustainable and greener. The prefabricated bamboo structures - which sit on raised platforms - have lime-hardened mud walls that keep out water, while the roofs consist of bamboo covered with straw matting, a layer of tarpaulin, and pozzolana, a waterproofing material. Except for bamboo, which needs to be bought from the nearest town or city, the straw, earth and grass for matting are procured from around villages and freely available.
Lime absorbs carbon dioxide from air and bamboo sequesters carbon as it grows, making the homes good for the environment, she said. The houses take a week to build, compared to about three weeks for mud huts and up to two months for permanent cement homes. They can be built for under US$87, which is less than a tenth of the cost of cement structures.
