RIBA has named Pakistan’s first female architect, Yasmeen Lari, as the recipient of the 2023 Royal Gold Medal – in recognition of her “post-retirement” work aiding under-privileged and disaster-hit communities and delivering environmentally friendly design solutions.

Lari was born in Dera Ghazi Khan, south-west of Lahore, in 1941. She moved to London with her family at the age of 15 and went on to study architecture at the then-Oxford Polytechnic, now Oxford Brookes University. She returned to Pakistan in 1964 with husband Suhail Zaheer Lari and established her own architecture firm, Lari Associates.

Since her retirement in 2000, Lari has focussed solely on humanitarian work, which has garnered significant international recognition. RIBA said her influence on the trajectory of architecture and humanitarian work in Pakistan had been “immeasurable”. It includes creating accessible, environmentally friendly construction techniques to help people below the poverty line and communities displaced by natural disasters and the impact of climate change.

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