26_Pakistan Housing Initiative

Current policy solutions as outlined in the government’s manifesto to address Pakistan’s housing shortage through supply optimization and financial incentives, but little emphasis is given on legalizing its vast existing informal housing sector.

Every major city in Pakistan has adjacent ‘katchi abadi’, i.e. slums, which are sheltering Pakistanis without formal housing opportunities.

( / ) ReD, a joint venture of Pakistan’s ReDefine and Sustainability Office lead by Reza Durani, and Christoph a. Kumpusch, Founder of New York based Forward slash ( / ) and Co-Director of the Mutating Cities Institute, was invited to focus their extensive experience and knowledge in developing, advocating and planning for a more sustainable and human housing solution in Pakistan.   

A current focus on constructing and financing new housing units to meet growing demand will be part of a larger, more transformative, sustainable and obtainable community development strategy:

( / ) ReD will develop solutions that improve already existing and lived-in spaces, bring them up to code and will work on those homes to be counted towards achieving the ambitious housing target set by the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

( / ) ReD  will work on upgrading and improving Pakistan’s existing shelters ‘katchi abadi’, which house the largest portion of the poorest segment of the population, by retrofitting the missing components of a ‘house’.

( / ) ReD’s housing strategy will start at the infrastructural and community scale – and work toward the housing scale. Every dwelling will be equipped with fresh water supply (through 800,000 mobile water wells), electricity (a solar grid structure powering individual homes – connected into a mesh-powergrid), and the implementation of the first of its kind waste water treatment system.

Our housing plan for Pakistan, joint-developed with its community, and using dignity and integrity as the basis, we are relentlessly advocating and working to provide:

• Shelter and safety
• Clean drinking water
• Electricity
• Waste management