Installations produced for and during Dubai Design Week have always been a core and crucial site of attraction and component of the annual festival gathering significant attention and interaction from visitors around a specific idea.

This year’s thematic approach focuses on subjects of responsible design geared towards positive impact where smart design and functionality go hand in hand to serve a purpose or solution to the fast-paced changes occurring in the current urban environment and the new challenges arising from physical distancing.

Individual UAE-based designers or collaborating creatives are encouraged to put forward functional, modular and purposeful proposals of semi-permanent, sustainable public space interventions with the intention of producing a body of work offering concrete proposals to be later replicated contextually in real scenarios.

Key considerations:

  • The public interventions will propose functional solutions for issues facing cities today and the challenges arising from social distancing, proposing solutions for problematics related to the changes occurring in the urban environment.

  • Designers are encouraged to use materials that are sustainable or sustainably sourced (recycled, up-cycled etc..) to ensure non-excessive production and prioritizing concepts that are semi-permanent, could be repurposed or have an afterlife, in d3 and around the city.

  • The public interventions could be a joint project between several designers or with private and public entities collaborating with local designers.

  • The installations need to be critical and offering innovative ideas on transforming the future with adaptable ideas and concepts that are not rigid, think modular.

  • Proposals that are purposeful and can be adopted by either the public or private sector where sponsors and brands could be encouraged to adopt them and reproduce them.