Founders of UAE studio rework the Emirati housh for modern life - Salaam
Salaam - For generations, the housh was the heart of Arab homes: a private gathering place that encouraged family ties and welcome. It gave people a shared space for social life and practical benefits like natural ventilation and shade.
As cities grew and modern towers rose across the Gulf, that traditional element became less common. But Omar Darwish and Abdulla Abbas, who run the UAE design and research studio Some Kind of Practice, are trying to bring the Emirati housh back into conversation.
They won this year’s Dubai Design Week Urban Commissions with a project called “When Does a Threshold Become a Courtyard.” Their aim wasn’t to copy old forms exactly, but to take the underlying idea of the housh - inward-focused, adaptable, protective - and rethink it for today’s needs.
Abbas says the housh is an inward world, formed over time as families grow and privacy needs change. Darwish points out how materials and climate shaped different housh types across the Emirates: coral and palm on the coast, mud brick in the desert, stacked stone in the mountains. The housh isn’t one fixed shape but a system that adjusts to people, place, and resources.
Their proposal explores how that logic could work in high-rise living. Rather than a single shared courtyard, they imagined each apartment holding its own internal garden or private view - a personal housh that preserves privacy while still allowing hospitality and community to happen. It’s about keeping the principle of inward life and environmental responsiveness, not recreating a historic look.
For both designers, the importance of the housh is less the exact form and more what it stands for: a peaceful household space that protects intimacy while remaining open to those invited in. They hope contemporary architecture here will move beyond copying global styles and instead be modern but rooted in climate, culture, and community.
May this kind of thoughtful design help keep our buildings humane and connected to local memory - and may it inspire builders and families to bring the spirit of the housh into modern homes.
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