When the Institut du monde arabe (IMA) launched its Design Award in 2023, it did so with a quietly radical ambition: to place the creative ingenuity of the Arab world at the centre of an international conversation about design, identity, and the future of making.
Now in its fourth edition, the prize has grown into one of the most compelling platforms in contemporary design, drawing together a field of finalists whose work spans architecture, textile, furniture, installation, and material innovation.
From September 10 to 20, 2026, the Institut du monde arabe will open its doors to an exhibition of these selected candidates. Admission is entirely free.
A Prize Built On Purpose
The Institut du monde arabe Design Award was conceived to illuminate the breadth and sophistication of design creation across the Arab world. Under the presidency of Anne-Claire Legendre, the Institut du monde arabe has long championed Arab cultures in all their richness and diversity, from heritage and visual arts to literature and human sciences. The Design Award is a natural extension of that mission, offering a dedicated stage for designers whose work interprets contemporary Arab life through the prism of form, material, and concept.
Two overarching themes guide the prize: tradition and transmission, and identities and futures. These are not abstract notions. They animate every finalist’s work, whether that manifests as a carved wooden bench inspired by the Atlas Mountains, a modular lighting installation rooted in historical architectural dialogue, or a domestic instrument designed to make Lebanon’s fractured energy infrastructure legible to its residents.
The award recognises designers across four distinct categories: the Emerging Talent Award, the Contemporary Craftsmanship Award, the Impact Award presented in partnership with Arab Bank Switzerland, and the Grand Prix.
This year’s jury is chaired by Shahira Fahmy, the Egyptian architect and founder of Shahira Fahmy Architects. She is joined by a panel that includes Sheikha Reem Al-Thani of Qatar Museums, NOMAD founder Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, Downtown Design director Mette Degn-Christensen, ELLE Décoration editor-in-chief Daniele Gerkens, and Canvas founder Ali Khadra, among others. Together, they bring a global perspective to the evaluation of work that is, at its heart, deeply local.
Emerging Talent: The Next Generation Of Arab Design
Eight finalists have been selected in the Emerging Talent category. Collectively they represent a generation unafraid to interrogate tradition, push material boundaries, and ask difficult questions about place, memory, and belonging.
Jeddah-based architect and artist Aseel Alamoudi presents Playformation, a series of seating pieces inspired by the natural rock formations of AlUla. Her Curve and Dot pieces translate geological lines into soft, open-ended forms that blur the boundary between rest and play, landscape and furniture.
Dubai-based designer Ayah Alkhatib offers Jaddelah, a folding partition that transforms Emirati women’s rituals, braiding, adornment, perfuming, and privacy, into a spatial threshold. Nila-dyed cotton braids form the screen’s body, held within an oud-wiped wooden frame and punctuated with brass details recalling the intimacy of hair adornment.
Franco-Moroccan designer Othmane Bengebara brings Irtah!, an ottoman developed as part of Futur Arab Tales, a design research project exploring Arab narratives and craft imaginaries. Developed with Ateliers Jouffre Maroc, it combines craftsmanship, textile creation, and artificial intelligence to propose new objects for the Arab world of tomorrow.
Beirut-raised architect Ahmad Hamad enters with Charlize, a sculptural bar piece from the Scarlet Collection by his furniture store Eclec. Defined by bold curves, glossy surfaces, and handcrafted production, it positions furniture at the intersection of functional sculpture and collectible object.
The collaborative duo Ismail Hutet and Blanca Scully present Minara: Pillars of Light, a modular lighting installation rooted in shared historical influences between the Arab world and Europe. Drawing on the Ablaq column construction tradition, the project translates rhythm, repetition, and structural coexistence into a luminous sculptural form, a contemporary archetype born of cultural dialogue.
Swedish-Iraqi designer Alexis Sizar enters with MA’DAN, a project exploring the architectural heritage of the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq through sculptural furniture and installations inspired by the Mudhif, a communal reed structure built through collective craft. The work carries cultural memory while confronting the fragile future of Iraq’s wetlands, threatened by climate change, dam construction, and oil extraction.
Riyadh-based practice Syn Architects, founded by Sara Alissa and Nojoud Alsudairi, presents Sokon, a collection developed in collaboration with Iwan Maktabi that takes inspiration from the morphologies of Najdi architecture. The word itself describes stillness and tranquillity, values embedded in the collection’s calm, inward-facing aesthetic.
Algerian designer Djaffar Zizi closes the category with Afniq, a bench carved from a raw log that reinterprets the traditional chest as a symbol of memory and protection. Inspired by the landscapes and traditions of the Atlas Mountains, it creates a dialogue between heritage, craftsmanship, and contemporary design through the direct encounter of hand, gesture, and natural material.
Contemporary Craftsmanship: Tradition Reimagined
The Contemporary Craftsmanship Award, dedicated to work that revisits traditions to address challenges of sustainability, personalisation, and local heritage, features nine finalists.
Qatari sisters Galyiah AlMohannadi and Lolwa AlMohannadi of G&L Studio present Saraab, a collection that reinterprets Gulf vernacular traditions through light, colour, materiality, and interaction, translating the experiential qualities of gypsum mashrabiya and coloured glass into contemporary interior objects.
Designer duo Yasmine and Mehdi of ALTIN offer Our AlUla Trilogy, three sculptural pieces in palm wood, fibrillum, and plant fibres born from a residency in AlUla, celebrating the dialogue between Tunisian and Saudi palm cultures.
Lebanese architect and industrial designer Fadi Yachoui of Atelier L’Inconnu presents La Volupté, a collection hand-sculpted from resin and embellished with rattan woven by master Lebanese craftsmen, a practice increasingly rare in the region. The collection won Best Collection at the Créateurs Design Awards in Paris and was unveiled at the Galleria Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week 2026.
Palestinian textile artist Areen Hassan contributes Weaving the Land Back, a textile installation developed between Palestine, the UAE, and South Lebanon. Created in collaboration with Palestinian refugee women from the Inaash Association, the work reinterprets Palestinian embroidery through hand-unravelled threads, producing fragile yet resilient surfaces that speak of memory, displacement, and cultural continuity.
Paris-based Franco-Moroccan architect and designer Imane Mellah presents Bab, a tapestry in which more than a thousand hand-cut muslin fringes are stitched into a checker field drawn from Amazigh weaving, resolving into the silhouette of a medina gate, its door left open as negative space. The ambition recalls the kind of cultural bridge-building also seen in AKAA 2026, Paris’s leading contemporary African art fair, which similarly champions underrepresented creative traditions on an international stage.
Cairo-based practice NJM, founded by architects Ahmed Marei and Mariam Marei, enters with Karnak, a 28-piece wooden building block set inspired by the clerestory of the Hypostyle Hall in Karnak Temple. The blocks stack using only gravity, no glue, only balance, weight, and precision.
Dubai-based designer and artist Aya Moug of Studio Aya Moug, Papyri presents Byblos, a plant-based biomaterial made from papyrus developed as a sustainable alternative to stone and marble, notable for its strength, longevity, and remarkable capacity as a natural pollution filter.
The Impact Award: Design As A Force For Change
of a Disappearing Casablanca, Morocco, 2020.
Supported by Arab Bank Switzerland, whose partnership with the IMA reflects a shared conviction that design can generate meaningful social, environmental, and economic value, the Impact Award category features five finalists whose work operates far beyond the studio.
Casablanca-based practice 99+ X Architects, founded by Alaa Halifi and El Yazid Boudraa, presents What Remains: Atlas of a Disappearing Casablanca, a civic reuse protocol that transforms demolition fragments into public memory, local employment, and shared infrastructure in the face of vast urban erasure.
Sherif Farag of ADD Architects enters with the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of Al-Nouri Complex in Mosul, Iraq, a project combining heritage conservation, archaeological interpretation, and community-oriented design. Winner of the UNESCO international design competition and recognised by both the AIA and the AAA, the project stands as one of the most significant post-conflict architectural heritage commissions of recent years.
At just 22 years old, Christopher Ghoussoub of Foukhar Studio is the last active potter in Beit Chabeb, a Lebanese village that once counted more than 200 potters. Through Foukhar Beit Chabeb, he is transforming this endangered heritage into a living, impactful practice, producing handmade terracotta pieces, conducting educational outreach, and building towards a workshop capable of training a new generation.
Syrian-born artist and architect Talin Hazbar, based in the UAE, presents Sediments, a project that transforms marine waste collected in collaboration with divers and fishermen into objects carrying both ecological and spatial narratives, linking submerged environments with terrestrial systems of making.
Beirut-based artist and researcher Dia Mrad of Post Design Studio offers PSI (Power Supply Indicator), a domestic instrument that translates Lebanon’s fragmented energy infrastructure into a readable system of signals, making the invisible visible within the home.
The Grand Prix: Established Vision, Enduring Impact
The Grand Prix, reserved for architects and designers with over ten years of professional experience, features six finalists whose careers represent the full reach of contemporary Arab design.
East Architecture Studio presents AlMusalla | On Weaving, a prayer space built for the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah that transforms date palm waste into a carbon-negative structure inspired by Gulf weaving traditions.
Interior architect Rania Hamed of VSHD Design offers Ommi, a line of tables born from a dialogue between Arab heritage and Italian craft, reinterpreting Islamic geometry through a newly developed glass texture in collaboration with Gallotti & Radice.
Artist Louis-Cyprien Rials presents Les Portes de Mossoul, three monumental hand-carved alabaster doors produced in Mosul with local artisans, conceived as a mobile monument reviving the city’s architectural memory and plural heritage.
Iranian multidisciplinary artist Roham Shamekh, based in Dubai, enters with the Fontana Sofa, a sculptural piece positioned between furniture and collectible object, inspired by Islamic conceptions of the soul and exploring rupture, healing, and balance.
Egyptian architect Tarek Shamma, named to the AD100 list in 2024, 2025, and 2026 and honoured as Designer of the Year by Condé Nast H&G, presents a Knightsbridge apartment, his most personal project to date, conceived as a fluid sequence of light and carefully crafted spaces. The intersection of fine craft and considered spatial design has also drawn considerable attention closer to home, as seen in the celebrated RH London The Gallery Mayfair opening, which similarly explored how interior environments can become immersive expressions of culture and craft.
Pioneer architect Salima Naji of Studio Salima Naji closes the category with the Tiznit Heritage Interpretation Centre, a new building constructed entirely of rammed earth within Moroccan ramparts dating to 1810, linking architecture to intangible heritage through the work of master craftsmen.
Where To Experience The Exhibition
The exhibition presenting all finalists and the award winners will be held at the Institut du monde arabe, Paris, from 10 to 20 September 2026. Entry is free and open to the public. The event coincides with Paris Design Week and the AlUla Cultural Season in Paris, with Design Space AlUla and AFALULA also highlighting the vitality of AlUla’s design scene within the exhibition’s programme.
For anyone with a genuine interest in where Arab design is going, this is not an occasion to miss.
