Dubai Design Week, the Middle East region’s leading design festival will mark its milestone 10th edition from November 5 to 10. It is the Persian Gulf region’s first globally recognised design week.
This year’s festival will reflect on a decade of design and its influence on the UAE’s dynamic and expanding interior design and furniture market, now estimated at USD 26 billion. The 2024 program will honour the local community, creative talent and regional design vernacular it has aimed to nurture over the past 10 years, while celebrating the city’s evolution as a global design hub.
Dubai Design Week 2024 will bring together over 500 established and emerging designers and brands from more than 40 countries to showcase new design thinking in the form of installations, exhibitions and experiential mediums. Fueled by rapid urbanisation, a strong real estate market, developments in infrastructure, diversification of the economy and evolving tastes and aesthetic needs of residents, businesses and tourists, Dubai Design Week has matured from its inception in 2015 into a major international design event.
Its success can be attributed to its forward–looking programming, a commitment to innovation and support of local talent and its role in shaping Dubai’s identity as a thriving global centre for design and creativity in the Middle East. It has become a platform for emerging, pioneering and established designers to showcase their work, connect with industry professionals, and gain exposure in the Middle East and beyond.
The anchor event of Dubai Design Week, Downtown Design, will again take place at its home on the d3 Waterfront Terrace from 6 to 9 November. Acclaimed as the region’s leading fair for contemporary and high-quality design, Downtown Design showcases the latest collections, innovative products and design solutions, complemented by a line-up of creative pop-up concepts, installations and networking events, alongside a line-up of talks, keynotes and master classes at The Forum.
Downtown Design is the ultimate destination for those seeking the latest trends in interior design, furniture, lighting and home accessories.
A key highlight of this year’s Dubai Design Week is the launch of Editions, the region’s first limited-edition art and design fair, running from 6 to 9 November. Over 50 galleries, design studios and collectives will exhibit contemporary design, photography, prints, ceramics and works on paper. Positioned alongside Downtown Design’s dynamic program and offering pieces at a range of prices, Editions paves an alternative route to art and design collecting, opening up the opportunities to a wider audience.
Dubai Design Week’s annual design competition, Urban Commissions, returns this year with the theme ‘Tawila’, meaning ‘table’ in Arabic, inviting designers and architects to propose innovative community furniture that explores the table beyond its form and as a facilitator of exchange, tradition and communal experiences.
This year’s winner is Altqadum, a research-based design studio from Oman that specialises in architecture, interior and objects design, led by Marwan Albalushi, Najd Albalushi and Abdulrahim Alkendi.
Their Bab Al Salam Mosque in Muscat is one of Time magazine’s ‘World’s Greatest Places 2024’.
Dubai-based architectural and interior design studio, Bone will present a pavilion made entirely from pre-fabricated earth blocks in collaboration with Fetdeterra, technical specialists in rammed earth architecture from Spain; Japanese architectural firm, Mitsubishi Jisho Design, will invite audiences to experience a traditional tea-house made from 3D printed waste sawdust; tech-driven multidisciplinary practice DEOND, founded by Ross Lovegrove and Ila Colombo, will explore the notion of phygital therapy with an AI-infused ‘second skin’ fabric that responds to the body’s state of being; as well as other installations made from various organic and upcycled materials including banana fibre, soybean wax, henna, Himalayan salt, terracotta and scrap metal.
Japan teahouse for people and pigeons
Monocle will bring the world of design, culture and business to the heart of Dubai for the month of November, launching at Dubai Design Week; celebrating creativity and craftsmanship with Monocle’s shop and café takeover of FRAME in d3, Art Jameel Shop will offer commissioned products by regional designers, and a dedicated retail space featuring social-impact driven brands including MADE 51, a global brand created by the UNHCR – UN Refugee Agency showcasing artisanal homeware and accessories crafted by refugees, and iIn addition, Abu Dhabi-based community arts space 421 will present design-led products by local and regional craft makers through their shop Dukkan421.
Abwab, meaning ‘doors’ in Arabic, is a program that supports designers from the South West Asian and North African (SWANA) region by commissioning installations or pavilions each year thematically remodelled to reflect relevant global and regional contexts.
Since its inception in 2015, over 180 designers from countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE have participated in Abwab. Noticeably missing in this list is Israel nearby, despite the the country giving birth to leading global designers and architects such as Moshe Safdie and Ron Arad.
For the 2024 Dubai Design Week edition, practitioners were invited to propose designs with a focus on vernacular architecture and how community-centric architectural methods—rooted in local materials and technique—can intersect with new environments. This is a topic we have covered extensively on Green Prophet. See our interview with Sandra Persik, the editor of the book Habitat.
Get the Dubai Design Week program here.
