From classrooms to creative districts: AUS talent featured at Dubai Design Week 2025

From experimental installations to international collaborations, American University of Sharjah’s (AUS) students, faculty and alumni put on a strong showing at this year’s Dubai Design Week (DXBDW). Here’s a look at their projects.

Future Architects: RIBA Student Showcase

The RIBA Gulf Future Architects Awards 2025 celebrated the creativity, innovation and talent of the next generation of architects, featuring exceptional student projects from RIBA-validated and partner universities across the UAE, including AUS. The exhibition was held on November 7 at Atrium 6, Dubai Design District (d3).

Four projects by AUS architecture students were featured, developed in collaboration with faculty members from the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD):

Deira Market & Food Hall — Zain Al Hajj, developed in collaboration with Tania Ursomarzo (Assistant Professor of Architecture), winner of best drawing at the RIBA exhibition

The Grounded Market — Sultan Al Sahlawi, developed in collaboration with Samar Halloum (Assistant Professor of Architecture)

Deira Market — Maya Abu Farha, developed in collaboration with Gregory Spaw (Associate Professor of Architecture)

Procession Through the Grove: A Spa Embedded in the Landscape — Lara Yassine, developed in collaboration with adjunct faculty member Saad Boujane

Presented under the Future Architects Exhibition, the showcase highlighted how AUS’ studio-based approach fosters collaboration between students and faculty while nurturing design excellence, social responsibility and real-world impact.

Breathing Falga: Responsive Architecture from Recycled Plastics

By: Tania Ursomarzo (CAAD Assistant Professor of Architecture) and Iman Ibrahim (CAAD Associate Professor of Interior Design) with students from AUS and the University of Sharjah.

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This striking pavilion reimagines waste as a design material. Created from recycled plastic components that expand and contract with the desert breeze, Breathing Falga explores how architecture can literally “breathe” in response to its environment. The project reflects AUS and CAAD’s leadership in sustainable design and hands-on architectural experimentation.

When Does a Threshold Become a Courtyard?

By: Some Kind of Practice, founded by AUS architecture alumni Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas

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When Does a Threshold Become a Courtyard? was this year’s winning proposal of Dubai Design Week’s Urban Commissions. The proposal is informed by the housh (الحوش), the Emirati courtyard, emerging through shifting walls, open thresholds and the transitional presence of the liwan (الليوان). It draws on fieldwork across the Emirates, from coastal settlements to mountain villages and treats the courtyard not as a fixed object but as a space that arises from the interplay of climate, craft, airflow and human movement, extending a practice rooted in observing, assembling and working with what is already present.

Abwab Pavilion: When Research Meets Craft

By: Latifa Alkhayat and Maryam Aljomairi, AUS architecture alumna and current PhD candidate at Harvard University (Photograph by Anique Ahmed)

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Representing the UAE in Dubai Design Week’s Abwab 2025 Pavilion, Stories of the Isle and the Inlet was created by Maraj, a Bahrain-based architecture and design platform founded by AUS architecture alumna Maryam Aljomairi and her business partner Latifa Alkhayat. The winning installation examines the ecological and cultural layers of Nabih Saleh, a Bahraini island located between Tubli’s wetlands and Sitra’s industrial zone. Combining ornament and oral histories, it reflects on a disappearing ecology while raising awareness of environmental preservation and cultural memory.

Pressure Cooker

Curated by: Azza Aboualam, CAAD interior design alumna and Curatorial and Design Assistant, Noor Nidal Hamdan, who is also an AUS alumna.

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Originally commissioned for the National Pavilion UAE at La Biennale di Venezia 2025, Pressure Cooker reimagines the greenhouse as an adaptable system for food production and community resilience in arid landscapes. Curated by Azza Aboualam, co-founder of Holesum Studio, the installation examines how design can respond to environmental pressures and reframe the relationship between architecture and food in the UAE. For this year’s edition of Dubai Design Week, Aboualam worked alongside Curatorial and Design Assistant and fellow Noor Nidal Hamdan, reflecting the strong culture of collaboration that continues among many CAAD alumni long after graduation.

Pixel and Awtād

By: Lina Ghalib, Product and Furniture Designer and CAAD alumna in interior design (Elements from Pixel on the right and from Awtād on the left).

Showcased under the Athath Fellowship, Pixel is a bench that reinterprets traditional Japanese joinery in a contemporary stainless-steel structure paired with a PlyPalm mosaic end-grain surface. Awtād, also by Ghalib, is a collection commissioned by 1971 Design Space, comprising an incense holder, candleholders and a book holder. Rooted in Emirati heritage, Awtād celebrates the symbolism of pillars as anchors of strength and ritual, crafted entirely from her PlyPalm material, a sustainable wood composite developed from discarded palm fronds. Together, these works embody a dialogue between craft, sustainability and cultural continuity within a contemporary design language.

Mille Feuille

By: Nourhan Rahhal, CAAD interior design alumna

Nourhan Rahhal presented her Mille Feuille collection as part of the collective exhibit UAE Exhibitors. Blending terracotta and oak wood, her designs draw inspiration from the classic French dessert known for its delicate, layered pastry. By translating that sense of layering into a sculptural furniture series, Rahhal gives rhythm, balance and repetition a physical form. Part of her ongoing Dessert Meets Furniture collection, the work explores the dialogue between culinary art and design—where sweetness and structure meet. Ultimately, Mille Feuille invites viewers to see furniture not just as functional objects, but as layered compositions that evoke emotion, texture and narrative through craft and materiality.

A leader in design innovation and excellence

DDW2025 showed that from Harvard’s research labs to Alserkal’s courtyards, AUS designers continue to push the boundaries of creativity and impact. The event also stood out for the number of collaborations between CAAD graduates, highlighting how the spirit of shared experimentation nurtured at AUS continues well beyond graduation