Every year, the Dubai Design District (d3) transforms into a grand celebration of art, architecture, and imagination. The 11th edition, held from November 4 to 9, 2025, once again turned the city into a living gallery.
Designers, architects, and artists from across the globe and especially the Middle-east, North Africa and South Asia, gathered to show how creativity can shape the way we see the world. From the early days of setup, artisans could be seen building intricate installations. Each telling a story of identity, innovation, or sustainability. By the second day, visitors began arriving from all corners of the Middle East and beyond to witness the mind-blowing creations.
Workshops offered aspiring artists a chance to sketch, design, build, and experiment with their own ideas. Talks and panels featured some of the most respected names in design, sharing the stories behind their concepts. And in between it all, the design market offered handcrafted pieces and souvenirs that visitors could take home. Here are a few designs that inspired us.
Flamenco Essence: The Lavender Pavilion is an installation that intertwines Saudi and Spanish cultural expressions. Lavender has been long cherished in Saudi tradition. And meets the dramatic visuals of Spanish Manila shawls and the richness of flamenco. Designed by Izaskun Chinchilla Architects, the space offers a scented refuge for reflection, connection, and calm. It proves that public space is a living canvas where culture, storytelling and good health exist side by side.
Designlab’s Woven Forest is an exploration of how design interacts with time, mood, and atmosphere. In daytime, the sunlight pours through the woven lattice, scattering shifting shadows across the wooden floor. At night, uplights illuminate the canopy from below, transforming it into a glowing crown over the entire courtyard. The installation breathes with its environment, changing character from hour to hour.
Although it’s been a year since the previous Dubai Design Week, we still couldn’t help but talk out thoughtful designs from 2024 too.
Therapeutic Himalayan Salt Brick Installation at Dubai Design Week 2024 by Dr. Aref Maksoud and UOS alumni from the University of Sharjah, which presented an installation that combines advanced technology with ancient wellness. After studying the healing properties of Himalayan salt, the team used AI and computational tools to design and produce 3,000 Himalayan salt bricks. This design from 2024 was used to build a pavilion that feels smooth, steady, and calming. The result is a sustainable environment where natural stress-relief properties meet tech-driven precision, creating a space that soothes, and elevates its surroundings.
The Iwan Pavilion also stood as a fusion of modern engineering and traditional Islamic architecture last year. Inspired by historic gateways, the designers replaced traditional materials with aluminum panels. This achieves both durability and visual lightness.  It had won the 2023 Tanween Foldable Pavilion Challenge by Ithra and Abywat. The minds behind this masterpiece are Mamou-Mani Architects and Saudi architects Abdulqader Alsuwaidan, Nawaf Alghamdi, Hayat Almousa, and Lama Dardas. It turned old-style gateways into walk-through experiences that helped people feel the culture in a modern setting at Dubai Design Week 2024.
MMA Projects and RAK Ceramics created The Shape of Water, an installation that transports visitors into the quiet depth of the ocean. Soft curved walls, filtered light, and ambient wave sounds, working together to produce a deeply immersive sensory moment. Everything, from the fluid forms to the organic contours echoed the gentle terrain of the sea floor, pulling guests into a world shaped by movement, quietness, and flow.
See you next year at Dubai Design Week 2026.