Earth Home Project investigates the rising challenges people in Pakistan and other developing countries have to face. The focus is on trying to find applicable solutions for people to erect affordable and stable homes by themselves. Architecture plays a crucial role in finding new ways of designing by incorporating local materials and building techniques, thereby minimizing not only the cost but most importantly the reliance on the economic situation. Sustainability, understood as an environmentally as well as socially responsible answer, therefor becomes the starting point of this architectural thinking.
The project started in Pakistan in 2011, initiated by Irshad Balouch, as a response to the flood that devastated his country during the summer of 2010 and the lack of support people in rural areas where given after they had lost their homes. A land area of 160,000 km² (nearly 20% of the country) was hit. The poorest regions were the ones most badly struck. 15 million people were affected and 6 million people lost their homes. For most of them it is strictly impossible to erect their houses on their own, the inflation in the cost of basic building materials forcing those able to acquire a loan into debt for life.
Following a thorough investigation of the shortcomings of the houses which had collapsed during the flood, the project then started working on a plan based on traditional architecture, making use of local building materials available in abundance: earth, straw, lime and bamboo. Those materials contribute to the sustainability of the design since they are highly accessible and do not require heavy machinery, hence empowering people by virtue of those materials being easy to acquire and handle.
The goal is to spread the necessary know-how required to build stable constructions, by involving residents of flood affected areas into the process of rebuilding their houses, accompanied by skilled craftsmen, employed by the project, and neighbors, there on a voluntary basis. The project (thanks to donations) is able to cover the unavoidable expenses of some building materials such as concrete and burned bricks for strong foundations, wood for window and door frames as well as basic tools.
The hope is that this will enable the community to be more prepared against future natural disasters and to be able to rely on their neighbors and their own abilities even if the dire state of the economy is pushing them towards the margins. So far the endeavor has been able to help raise 121 homes around the area of Multan, which had been very badly affected by the flood due to its position in the Indus river basin.
Ismailimail 