Words by Ayesha Shehmir-Shaikh
In the heart of Dubai’s desert metropolis, where tradition meets the shimmer of the future, Dubai Design Week 2025 unfolds as a living dialogue between craft, community, and the quiet poetry of innovation.
Since its inception, Dubai Design Week has become a mirror to the city’s evolving creative spirit — an intersection where cultures meet and disciplines intertwine. Under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of Dubai Culture, and in strategic partnership with Dubai Design District (d3), the festival returns for its 11th edition — a five-day reflection on the power of design to connect, transform and reimagine the everyday.
This year, more than a thousand designers and brands will gather to present ideas that span architecture, interiors, furniture, product, graphic and experiential design. The result is a living dialogue between tradition and innovation — a design ecosystem that feels as diverse, layered, and forward-looking as the city itself.
A Platform for Creativity and Community
“Dubai Design Week brings such a wealth of creative talent and energy to Dubai Design District each November – from here in the UAE, the region and across the globe,” says Khadija Al Bastaki, Senior Vice President of d3.
“This year more than 1,000 acclaimed and emerging designers and brands will showcase. Dubai Design Week is representative of everything we stand for at d3: creativity; design inspiration; knowledge exchange; community; collaboration and partnership; nurturing talent from near and far; and a place and platform for dialogue and conversation on the future of the design industry.”
For Shaima Rashed Al Suwaidi, Chief Executive Officer of the Arts, Design & Literature Sector at Dubai Culture, the week carries a larger cultural weight: “Dubai Design Week plays a vital role in strengthening the cultural and creative industries by providing opportunities for emerging designers, supporting entrepreneurs, and showcasing regional talent on a global stage. Through initiatives such as the special commissions for emerging talent and the Marketplace, we are reinforcing Dubai’s position as a UNESCO Creative City of Design and advancing Dubai’s cultural vision of being a global centre for culture, an incubator for creativity, and a thriving hub for talent.”
Design as a Social Connector
“This year, our direction takes a more reflective approach,” shares Natasha Carella, Director of Dubai Design Week.
She adds, “exploring design not only as a practice of innovation but also as a social connector, a civic and cultural force that shapes how we live together, communicate and build systems of care. From spatial typologies rooted across cultures and climates to a focus on material intelligence, detail and cultural nuance, the programme is intentional and human-centred, bridging heritage with contemporary. Ultimately, we’re asking: how can design bring people together across disciplines, geographies and generations?”
It is this question — how design can bring people together — that resonates through every pavilion, exhibition, and commission of 2025.
Urban Commissions: The Courtyard Reimagined
This year’s Urban Commission is awarded to UAE-based design and research studio Some Kind of Practice, founded by Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas. Their proposal, When Does a Threshold Become a Courtyard?, reimagines the courtyard as communal infrastructure — a space of gathering and reflection that bridges climate, craft and community.
Informed by the Emirati housh (الحوش), the project draws from fieldwork across the Emirates, observing how local builders work with what is at hand — stone, Arish, corrugated steel — creating a logic of assemblage and adaptation. The studio’s approach “sets conditions for space to emerge from dialogue,” revealing how design can materialise from lived realities rather than imposed forms.
Downtown Design: The Anchor of the Week
From 5–9 November, Downtown Design — the region’s leading fair for quality and contemporary design — returns to the d3 Waterfront Terrace. Here, innovation meets material mastery, as global icons and regional pioneers showcase new collections, products and ideas.
Returning exhibitors include Huda Lighting, Kartell, Poltrona Frau, Venini, Vitra, Obegi Home and Kohler, alongside new participants such as Roche Bobois, Stellar Works, Porada, Desalto, and French designer Stéphanie Coutas. Regional highlights feature BEIT Collective’s Lebanese craft objects, Yousef Shabaz’s Strata from Pakistan, and the ‘Designed in Saudi’ showcase by the Kingdom’s Design & Architecture Commission.
Immersive experiences abound: a striking pop-up by Buccellati designed by david/nicolas; the Solaire Lounge by Veuve Clicquot and Studio Marcel Poulain; Styled Habitat’s concept for Nordic Homeworx; and a bold hospitality installation by Etereo Design Studio for Cosentino.
Editions: Art, Design, and the Language of Collectibility
Running alongside Downtown Design, Editions Art and Design will celebrate limited-edition works — from ceramics and prints to collectible furniture and artist multiples. Highlights include Galerie Geek Art’s debut regional showcase of Japanese art, Dubai-based Ila Colombo’s AI-driven practice, and new collaborations between david/nicolas, Iwan Maktabi, and Orient 499.
Returning exhibitors such as Leila Heller Gallery (with prints by Keith Haring) and Rarares Gallery further anchor Editions as a bridge between regional voices and global dialogues in collectible design.
Antilla Di Lauro, Jannah. Image Courtesy of Downtown Design.
Abwab: In the Details
This year’s Abwab theme, In the Details, explores material intelligence and cultural nuance through the lens of ornamentalism — viewing ornament not as decoration but as embedded knowledge and visual storytelling. Since 2015, Abwab has platformed over 180 designers from across West, South and East Asia and Africa, and continues to serve as a barometer of design identity in motion.
Installations: The City as Exhibition
Across Dubai Design District, over 30 large-scale installations will transform the public realm into an open-air gallery. Local studios present material innovation rooted in context — ARDH Collective’s low-carbon DuneCrete and DateForm structures, AJZAL’s reimagined majlis, and EDGE Architects’ 3D-printed experiments — while international names such as Nikken Sekkei, Grimshaw, and Designlab Experience bring global craft to regional conversation.
In the End: A Threshold Becomes a Courtyard
Dubai Design Week 2025 unfolds as a meditation on space — the kind we inhabit, build, and imagine. In the rhythm of workshops and installations, in the hum of dialogue and collaboration, the city itself becomes a courtyard: open yet enclosed, intimate yet shared.
And in that courtyard, design becomes what it has always aspired to be — not a luxury of form, but a language of belonging. 5–9 November 2025 | Dubai Design District (d3)
