Sharjah Architecture Triennial
This new series of conversations opens with an online talk on architecture in contexts of conflict, crisis and uncertainty.
The Sharjah Architecture Triennial has announced the final public programme ahead of its third edition (SAT03), Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures, opening in November 2026. Led by SAT03 curator Vyjayanthi Rao, a series of conversations brings together practitioners, artists and thinkers to examine how architecture responds to a world shaped by uncertainty, crisis and ongoing change. Planned in the shadow of war, the programme titled Staying with the Trouble: Conversations around Architecture Otherwise looks to urban contexts where architecture has long had to grapple directly with destruction and instability. Rather than offering solutions, the conversations ask how the built environment might support everyday forms of coexistence, care and interdependence - and how it might help foster collective futures across different places and geographies.
Taking place online on Saturday, May 16 at 5pm GST, the first conversation, themed Anticipation, opens this inquiry through the lens of Lebanon—a country shaped by decades of conflict where peace remains deferred, and futures are continuously renegotiated. Speakers Hiba Bou Akar (Associate Professor in the Urban Planning program at Columbia GSAPP) and Mohamad Nahleh (Assistant Professor of Architecture at Ohio State University), both trained in Lebanon and now based in the US, draw on their research and lived experience to reflect on the multiple conditions of the “post-war”, and what it means to practice architecture within prolonged uncertainty.
Staying with the Trouble builds on two previous public programming events, held in the lead-up to SAT03. These included a three-day Mumbai Offsite event, Architecture Otherwise, in November 2025, co-hosted with the city’s School of Environment and Architecture (SEA), which brought together architects, social thinkers, activists and artists to explore practices that reframe architecture as a social, ecological and epistemological discipline. In January 2026, an in-conversation titled Another City is Possible: Mediating Architecture examined how urban space is produced not only through buildings and infrastructure, but through social relations, narratives and cultural practice. To attend the talk, register here.
Press office
Pelham Communications, T +44 (0) 20 8969 3959, @pelhamcomms, Rel Hayman: rel@pelhamcommunications.com / Lucy Groom: lucy@pelhamcommunications.com
Sharjah Architecture Triennial, T +971 50 261 4423, @sharjaharchitecture, Anum Laghari: anum@sharjaharchitecture.org
About Sharjah Architecture Triennial
Sharjah Architectural Triennial (SAT) is a platform that focuses on architecture and urbanism in a region that spans West Asia, South Asia and the African continent. The Triennial was founded by the late Sheikh Khalid Bin Sultan Al Qasimi (1980-2019) and has since been led by Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, supported by a team of architects, designers and researchers.
SAT engages diverse audiences and stakeholders in a collective conversation on architecture at the neighbourhood, city and regional levels. Through exhibitions, publications and public programmes, SAT supports ongoing critical reflection and institutional research and programming in conjunction with its international editions. The Triennial complements these diverse initiatives, focusing the conversation on the critical role that architecture and urbanism can play in the present and future of a welcoming and liveable Sharjah.
About Hoor Al Qasimi
Hoor Al Qasimi is President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, the public art institution she established in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts in Sharjah, the UAE and around the world. Director of Sharjah Biennial since 2003, she has curated and co-curated major exhibitions for the Foundation and numerous international institutions, including the critically acclaimed Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023), the major touring retrospective Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist (2017–2018) and solo exhibitions of artists Simone Fattal, Rasheed Araeen, Yayoi Kusama, Farideh Lashai, Khalil Rabah, Bouchra Khalili, Emily Karaka, Antonio Dias and William Kentridge.
Al Qasimi also serves as President of the International Biennial Association; President of The Africa Institute, Sharjah; President of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial; head of Sharjah’s Global Studies University; and President of the Sharjah Creative Quarter. Al Qasimi curated the 2020 Lahore Biennial and is Artistic Director of the 6th Aichi Triennale (2025) and the 25th Biennale of Sydney (2026). She recently received the insignia of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters), conferred by the Embassy of France in the UAE.
About Mona El-Mousfy
Mona El-Mousfy is an architect and the founder of SpaceContinuum, a research-based architecture practice that explores the relationship between space, shared social practices, and sociocultural conditions. An advisor of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, El-Mousfy was instrumental in founding the initiative in 2017. She also serves as an Architectural Consultant for the Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) where she has worked on several projects including the successive editions of the Sharjah Biennial since 2005.
El-Mousfy is currently engaged in various adaptive reuse projects leading a team of architects at the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Sharjah Architecture Triennial. She designed the SAF Art Spaces Al Mureijah in 2013, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Agha Khan Award for Architecture, and the Rainroom Al Mujarrah in 2018. Her most recent adaptive reuse project is the Flying Saucer, 2020, where she has restored the original mid-1970s character of the building while introducing a new outdoor public space and a community space around a sunken courtyard.
El-Mousfy has previously taught at the College of Architecture, Art, and Design, American University of Sharjah, where she held a full-time position from 2002 to 2014.
