Architects must stop waiting for commissions from wealthy clients and prioritise designing for the planet, says RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner Yasmeen Lari in this exclusive interview.

Speaking to Dezeen from her home in Pakistan, Lari said she hopes her Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Royal Gold Medal win, announced today, can encourage other architects to use their skills to alleviate crises such as climate change.

"The future of the planet is in our hands," Lari told Dezeen. "Architects have a very important role to play and we cannot design just to please our clients anymore or just to please ourselves."

"The planet is far bigger and far more important than any one of us. When we design, we really have to be feeling the Earth in some way, we cannot continue to inflict damage on it."

Lari becomes the sixth woman and second sole female to ever win the prestigious accolade, presented by King Charles III this year for the first time.

The selection committee praised Lari for her "focus on architecture as a complete and vital social, cultural, economic and aesthetic model".

Lari is best known for what she calls "barefoot social architecture", which focuses on improving the lives of disadvantaged communities through low-cost, low-carbon, zero-waste materials and building technologies.

She believes the award reflects a positive change in attitude towards this humanitarian brand of architecture, which people originally thought she was "a bit crazy" for pursuing.

"I never even imagined that what I was doing, which is so different and wasn't taken very seriously, would be considered as a legitimate way for an architect to be doing things," she explained.

Lari spent much of her career designing large buildings for major corporate clients as part of her own studio before retiring in 2000 to specialise in humanitarian work.

She explained that this decision was partly down to wanting a change from designing big projects that were all "aiming for the same thing – just to impress everybody".

"I feel that an architect's role should be more of an activist now," Lari reflected.

"If you want to change the world, then you've got to fight it out. Otherwise, you are just driven by what other people want," she continued. "If you believe in something, then you have to be upfront."

"I think [my award recognition] might open up new avenues for a lot of people who might be thinking in the same way," she said.

Specifically, Lari said her hope lies in young people. She believes her "message resonates with them more than others", and that this could see a stream of young architects entering the humanitarian field in the future.

"I'm hoping that this might encourage some of the younger professionals to be able to take that more seriously or on a more kind of more permanent way."

However, she also acknowledges that encouraging greater uptake of low-carbon and humanitarian architecture will be a challenge.

"Since everybody's affected by the capitalist system, which is all about making profits, and it's all driven by money, I'm not sure if [barefoot social architecture] can ever become mainstream," she explained. "Training is driven towards working for a client and waiting for a commission."

"When you're waiting for a commission it will only come from people who are wealthy, and that means that you have to follow what they're saying."

She said the industry is also plagued by a "lazy" attitude that relies on using readily available and conventional materials such as concrete and steel.

"I think it's a fallacy to think that you can't do without concrete and steel," said Lari.

"We've got to rethink how we want to build," she continued. "I can imagine not everybody will want to use earth or bamboo, but lime can be used by many."

Lime, a material found in much of Lari's work, was commonly used by the Romans as an ingredient in concrete and is capable of continually absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.

"Architects are not looking at [alternative materials] because none of these commercial companies giving you all those leaflets [are manufacturing them]," she said.

"Unfortunately, we are very lazy," she continued. "We just want to look at something and just have it ready for us. We have to now organise ourselves for the ones who really care."

*Lari specialises in creating low-cost and low-carbon buildings for disadvantaged communities*

More here. And from Yasmeen’s 2021 manifesto:

I would like to see a new activism among architects for the adoption of innovative approaches such as degrowth, transition design as well as Barefoot Social Architecture, a stratagem that we devised to maximize the barefoot ecosystem for the empowerment of those living on the fringes, thus ensuring the well-being of humankind as well as our planet.

Barefoot Social Architecture fosters rights-based development providing shelter, sanitation, clean food and water at one-quarter of the usual cost through a process of self-building and co-creation. Its four tenets consist firstly of the Three Zeros as well as Zero Charity to provide self-worth and self-reliance among the poorest of the poor.

Secondly, it provides social and ecological justice through humanistic architecture fostering pride, dignity and well being and preventing depletion of the planet’s resources.

Thirdly, it delivers unmet needs of marginalized sections by training them as Barefoot Entrepreneurs through the Incubator for Social Good and Environmental Sustainability, which would help provide access to affordable products for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Fourthly, it constructs well-designed non-engineered structures for shrinking the ecological footprint of buildings using green skills and locally sourced green materials.

Moving forward, we must all stand for a humanistic, inclusive architecture that is driven by environmental considerations, that treads lightly on the planet and responds to the needs of the majority – the vulnerable masses who have not been considered worthy of attention by architects but who can no longer be ignored in a global village where Covid-19 has blurred distinctions and equalized humanity.

More here.

“When we design, we really have to be feeling the Earth in some way, we cannot continue to inflict damage on it.” RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner, Yasmeen Lari