All too often small towns and marginalised communities are overlooked and lack the resources or capacity for effective urban and rural planning. To address this gap, the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) developed a Habitat Planning Framework, which uses participatory urban and rural planning approaches to provide long-term design solutions to improve quality of life in the communities it serves – from a neighbourhood through to the village and district scale. Building on this Framework, AKAH, together with Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and Graduate School of Design is testing an innovative virtual design studio approach to remote planning in Ishkashim, Afghanistan.