Architect Dalia Hamati Named Curator for UAE Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale 2027

Architect and assistant professor Dalia Hamati has been appointed as the curator for the UAE pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2027. Selected through an open call, her upcoming exhibition will explore the nation's relationship with water and examine how historical hydrocultural practices can inform sustainable building in a warming climate.

Scheduled to run from May 8 to November 21, 2027, at the permanent UAE pavilion in the Arsenale’s Sale d’Armi, the exhibition will investigate how water has shaped communities, settlement patterns, and shared resource systems. Hamati's research builds on her previous academic work, including a lecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, and draws inspiration from traditional UAE architecture such as arish structures made from date palms and wind towers.

Born in Sharjah in 1984, Hamati studied at the University of Bath and Columbia University, worked with Ennead Architects in New York, and currently runs an independent practice in Dubai while teaching in Sharjah. Her previous notable projects include working as lead architect on Tarabot: Weaving a Living Forum—commissioned by Art Jameel and designed by Adib Dada’s practice, theOtherDada—and collaborating on the mycelium-based ReRoot project for Dubai Design Week in 2024.

This appointment follows her earlier collaboration with the UAE National Pavilion in 2021, where she worked alongside the UAE studio Waiwai, which won the Golden Lion for the Wetland exhibition led by Wael Al Awar, and helped coordinate the A Bench in Venice student initiative. Commissioned by the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation and supported by the Ministry of Culture, the 2027 exhibition will mark the UAE's seventh participation in the architecture biennale and aims to create a dialogue between the UAE and Venice's respective hydrocultural histories.