Dubai Design Week 2025, taking place from 4-9 November 2025, marks the event’s 11th edition at Dubai Design District (d3). The week-long festival stands as the Middle East’s leading platform for design and creativity, bringing together architects, designers, brands, universities, and cultural institutions from around the world. Through exhibitions, installations, talks, workshops, activations, and fairs, Dubai Design Week highlights how design fosters innovation, sustainability, and cross-cultural dialogue.
Discover Dubai Design Week 2024
Dubai Design Week Installations
Abwab – Regional Design Platform
Abwab (Arabic for “doors”) remains one of Dubai Design Week’s signature initiatives, supporting creative practitioners from West, South, and East Asia and Africa through annually commissioned pavilions. Since its inception, Abwab has featured over 180 designers from 15+ countries, reflecting regional narratives within global design conversations.
The 2025 theme, In the Details, invites architects, researchers, and designers to explore ornamentation as a language of design. It challenges participants to reinterpret traditional motifs, surfaces, and patterns as immersive spatial experiences – drawing from the ornamental histories of architecture, textiles, and craft to express new material and aesthetic relationships.
The 2025 commission, titled “Stories of the Isle and the Inlet”, is presented by Maraj, a Bahrain-based architecture and design platform founded by Latifa Alkhayat and Maryam Aljomairi. Their installation explores the ecological and cultural identity of Nabih Saleh, a Bahraini island situated between Tubli’s wetlands and Sitra’s industrial zone. Combining oral histories with ornament and textile craft, the work reflects on a vanishing landscape, merging embroidery, storytelling, and environmental awareness. Created with local artisans and inspired by the thob al nashil, the installation’s embroidered mesh structure visualizes native flora, fauna, and the tidal rhythms of Tubli Bay, underscoring the interdependence of craft, ecology, and architecture.
Discover Downtown Design Dubai 2025
Urban Commissions – Designing for Public Space
The Urban Commissions competition returns in 2025 with the theme “Courtyard”, examining this spatial typology as a vital form of communal urban infrastructure. Designers were invited to reinterpret the courtyard as both architectural and social space – balancing openness and enclosure, public and private, intimacy and interaction.
The winning project, “When Does a Threshold Become a Courtyard?”, is by Some Kind of Practice, a UAE-based studio founded by Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas. The work explores the housh (الحوش) – the traditional Emirati courtyard—through shifting walls, open thresholds, and the transitional presence of the liwan (الليوان). Drawing on fieldwork across coastal and mountain settlements, the project reframes the courtyard not as a fixed typology but as a dynamic condition shaped by climate, craft, airflow, and movement – a living intersection of design, behavior, and environment.
Installations
More than 30 installations will populate Dubai Design District (d3) during the 2025 edition. These large-scale, site-specific works investigate how design, science, and technology can reclaim materials from the past while advancing sustainable futures. Participating architects and studios will showcase interactive and conceptual projects that transform the urban landscape into a design laboratory open to all.
Discover Milan Design Week 2025
Installation at Dubai Design Week 2024
Workshops – The Maker Space
Workshops take place in the Maker Space – Made by Mart®, a pop-up hub dedicated to experimentation and education. Hosting over 45 sessions for all ages, it offers a mix of expert-led masterclasses, hands-on workshops, and children’s activities spanning design, art, and technology.
- Masterclasses focus on professional growth – covering portfolio development, presentation skills, and creative strategy – led by design leaders and educators.
- Hands-on workshops allow participants to engage directly with materials, exploring links between craft, science, and digital fabrication. Topics range from natural pigment making and ceramics to woodwork, digital design, and photography.
- Children’s workshops nurture curiosity and creativity through playful introductions to making, encouraging families to value design as part of everyday life.
- Exhibitions – Showcasing Design Innovation
Exhibitions are central to Dubai Design Week’s mission to foster creative exchange among institutions, collectives, and practitioners. In 2025, the programme spans architecture, design research, art, and education, spotlighting projects that combine local insight with global relevance.
d3 x RIBA | Architecture Exhibition
Organised by Dubai Design District in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gulf Chapter, and supported by Bolon and Kvadrat, the d3 Architecture Exhibition explores how environmental design fosters community and belonging.
It brings together work by leading studios – Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster + Partners, BIG, Grimshaw, and Killa Design – alongside projects from the RIBA Future Architects and RIBA Middle East Awards.
Al Jalila Cultural Centre for Children | Children’s Exhibition
Curated by Kamal Al Zoubi, this exhibition celebrates young ceramic artists and local craftsmanship. Alongside a pottery market featuring Emirati artisans, visitors can join interactive ceramic workshops. The initiative reflects Al Jalila Centre’s mission to cultivate creativity and inclusivity among children and families.
American University of Sharjah – College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) | Six Degrees Offsite
Six Degrees Offsite presents innovative projects by emerging designers and graduates from CAAD. The showcase includes architecture, design management, interior design, multimedia, and visual communication works. A week-long series of talks, workshops, and interactive sessions encourages collaboration and dialogue between academia and industry.
Events include faculty talks on current research, alumni panels on design practice in the UAE, and a Mini CAAD Symposium introducing new academic programmes.
Other Exhibitions
- L’ÉCOLE School of Jewelry Arts – Poetry of Birds
- NYU Abu Dhabi – Digital Matter: Parametric Design Lab & Future Punk
- RIBA Future Architects & Student Awards Exhibition
- RIBA Middle East Awards
Activations – Immersive Brand and Cultural Experiences
Activations transform d3 into a multisensory landscape through projects by brands, institutions, and independent designers. These cross-disciplinary presentations merge brand storytelling, cultural identity, and social engagement.
Highlights include:
ASUS Middle East, Bootleg Griot, Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Le Labo, Occhio Store by Goettling, Fahed+Architects, MOMA International, Pierre Gonalons x Art de Vivre, True Design, Zaro Architects x Dana Al Sharif x Charity Schools and others.
Themes range from emotional design and lighting to sustainability, inclusivity, and material experimentation.
Marketplace – Craft, Community, and Creativity
The Marketplace celebrates craftsmanship and entrepreneurship with over 80 regional brands and 15 local food vendors. It highlights original products – from sustainable fashion and handmade jewelry to ceramics and home décor. Visitors can shop, dine, and engage in interactive experiences including upcycling workshops, shoe repair stations, and live performances by local creatives.
Talks – Sharing Knowledge and Perspectives
Dubai Design Week’s Talks Programme unites thought leaders and innovators from across disciplines to discuss the evolving role of design in society. Hosted in multiple venues across d3, including The Forum – a specially designed amphitheatre conceptualised annually by a local studio – the sessions encourage debate and idea exchange among regional and global voices.
Downtown Design – The Anchor Fair
Downtown Design, the Middle East’s leading contemporary design fair and the anchor event of Dubai Design Week, returns from 5-9 November 2025.
Managed by the Art Dubai Group in partnership with Dubai Design District and supported by Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, the fair presents international and regional brands, manufacturers, and studios. It features bespoke works, limited editions, and emerging designers, focusing on design excellence and commercial opportunity.
Beyond its exhibition spaces, Downtown Design hosts pop-ups, masterclasses, and networking events, welcoming design professionals, homeowners, and enthusiasts alike.
Design Downtown 2024
Editions – Limited-Edition Art and Design Fair
Launched in 2024, Editions is the Middle East’s fair dedicated to limited-edition art and design. Running concurrently with Downtown Design, it showcases over 50 galleries, studios, and collectives presenting works across photography, ceramics, prints, and collectible design.
By bridging the audiences of Art Dubai and Downtown Design, Editions expands regional engagement with high-quality, collectible works at accessible price points. The 2025 edition, held from 5-9 November on the d3 Waterfront Terrace, further establishes Dubai as a nexus for art, design, and creative investment.
Why Visit
Dubai Design Week is a unique opportunity to see Dubai up close in a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary guise, and to understand the exciting path taken by the UAE. Between Public Projects and Downtown Dubai, and from this year also Editions, Dubai Design Week is thus a comprehensive platform to follow the evolution of design in this area of the world. For 2025 the festival returns for its 11th edition. The main hub is the Dubai Design District (d3), with satellite venues and events across the city.
This year, the theme explores the idea of design as a social connector, in line with the UAE’s “Year of Community” initiative. Flagship elements include the anchoring fair Downtown Design (5-9 November) which brings together global and regional design brands. Also returning are the initiatives Abwab (which opens up talent from West, South & East Asia and Africa) and Urban Commissions (this year themed around the “courtyard” as communal infrastructure). In this context, the festival not only showcases objects and products with identity, but places them within a broader cultural, social and communal framework – making it a meaningful moment to discover how design in the region is evolving in both form and purpose.
Dubai Design Week, November 4-9, 2025
For professional and general public
Location: Dubai Design District (d3)
Size: over 500 exhibitors, 200,000 visitors
Visit website DubaiDesignWeek.ae for more info
