The Sharjah-based Architecture + Other Things are one of 12 designers and studios participating in the creation of the UAE’s Abwab Pavilion at Dubai Design Week, under the curation of Dubai’s Mobius studio.
The Sharjah-based Architecture + Other Things are one of 12 designers and studios participating in the creation of the UAE’s Abwab Pavilion at Dubai Design Week, under the curation of Dubai’s Mobius studio.
A collaborative, interdisciplinary platform, Architecture + Other Things explores alternative models of architectural practice and design, and examines the role of technology in contemporary architecture. Here, they discuss their work and contribution to Abwab.
Could you please offer some insight into what visitors can expect to experience in the UAE Pavilion at Abwab?
Architecture + Other Things' project for the UAE Pavilion at Abwab responds to the given theme of ‘Games: The Element of Play in Culture’ through the conceiving of an interactive sound-making machine.
The machine takes audio-visual prompts from vernacular games such as "Al Tartoor" and "Arabana Hadid." Moreover, the game aspect is amplified when visitors become aware that they can take part in manipulating the existing soundscape, allowing for a potentially social game to evolve.
Your projects have been concerned with the dangers of homogeneity in Middle-East design. Could you please elaborate?
Projects such as ‘Computational Regionalism’ are born from a direct reaction to the proliferation of homogeneity in Middle Eastern design practices. This has been amplified in recent times through the democratisation and easy access to digital tools that allow for an easy generation of pastiche patterns.
Therefore, the project attempts to uncover the contemporary potential of the historical material cultures, vis-a-vis computational design methodologies, by restructuring the relationship between attitudes towards design and the tools that are used for production.
Middle Eastern material culture has long been computational in its attitude, however, resultant aesthetics must change today given that we have access to tools that go well and beyond a simple compass that was key in generating traditional patterns.
In your view, what is contemporary Arabic architecture? And, what of architecture’s future in the Middle East?
It must be an attitude towards design that drives the conception and production of the work ,and not an image based practice as has been the norm.
The future of architecture and material culture in the Middle East is difficult to predict, as with all futures, but it can be one that is able to do three key things: Critically asses the contemporary Middle Eastern condition; embrace contemporary design methodologies; and abandon nostalgia.