Sharjah Architecture Triennial

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Sharjah Architecture Triennial Platform for architecture and urbanism in a region that extends from West Asia to South Asia and the African continent. linktr.ee/sharjaharchitecturetriennial

Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT) is a platform for architecture and urbanism in a region that extends from West Asia to South Asia and the African continent. Physically anchored in Sharjah and the United Arab Emirates, SAT aims to engage diverse audiences and stakeholders in a collective conversation on architecture at the neighbourhood, city, and regional levels. Institutional research and programming support on-going critical reflection through exhibitions, publications, and public programmes in tandem with its international editions. SAT is committed to pursuing a multi-disciplinary approach that fosters an understanding of the broader role of architecture, including its relation to social and environmental issues.

يعدّ ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة المنصة الرئيسة والأولى من نوعها للعمارة والتحضّر في المنطقة الممتدة من شرق آسيا وجنوبها إلى قارة أفريقيا. ويتخذ من الشارقة والإمارات العربية المتحدة مقراً ينطلق منه في مهمة استقطاب مختلف الأفراد والمؤسسات لخلق حوارٍ جماعيّ عن العمارة يمتد من نطاق الحي الواحد إلى المدينة وصولاً إلى المنطقة أجمع. كما يسعى التربنالي إلى تقديم مساحة للتأمل النقدي، وذلك من خلال البحث المؤسسي والبرامجالتي تشمل المعارض والبرامج العامة التي ينظمها والمنشورات التي يصدرهابالإضافة إلى دورات الترينالي التي تحمل طابعاً عالمياً من حيث الخطاب والتغيير الذي تقدمه. ويلتزم ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة باتباع منهجية التخصصات المتعددة التي من شأنها بناء مفهوم واضح لدور العمارة الأشمل والأعمق، بما في ذلك علاقتها بالقضايا الاجتماعية والبيئية.

First used as an offsite location during , the old Slaughterhouse in Sharjah will once again serve as a exhibition ...
20/10/2026

First used as an offsite location during , the old Slaughterhouse in Sharjah will once again serve as a exhibition venue.

SAT03 ‘Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures’, examines the urgent question of how architecture can help shape collective life in a world marked by rapid urban transformation.

The opening week programme, taking place from 14 to 19 November 2026, will feature a diverse series of conversations, panel discussions, workshops, screenings, tours and other public activations across Sharjah. The programme will introduce the practices, perspectives and ideas that shape the third edition of the Triennial.

Stay tuned as we announce the SAT03 opening week programme schedule!

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Register via the link in the bio.

Image: Ahmed Osama
بعد أن استُخدم المسلخ القديم في الشارقة موقعاً خارجياً خلال النسخة الثانية من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة، سيعود ليكون أحد مواقع العرض في النسخة الثالثة.

تأتي هذه الدورة بعنوان “العمارة بشكلٍ مختلف: بناء بنيةٍ مدنيةٍ لمستقبلٍ جماعي”، لتستكشف تساؤلاً ملحّاً حول الدور الذي يمكن أن تؤديه العمارة في تشكيل حياتنا الجماعية، في عالم تتسارع فيه التحولات الحضرية.

ينطلق البرنامج الافتتاحي من 14 إلى 19 نوفمبر 2026، بسلسلة من الحوارات والندوات وورش العمل وعروض الفيديو والجولات، إلى جانب برامج وأنشطة تتوزع في أنحاء مختلفة من إمارة الشارقة، وتفتح باباً للتعرّف إلى الممارسات والأفكار التي ترسم ملامح الدورة الثالثة من الترينالي.

ترقّبوا الإعلان عن تفاصيل برنامج أسبوع افتتاح النسخة الثالثة من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة!

برنامج الافتتاح مجاني ومفتوح للجمهور. سجّلوا الآن عبر الرابط في البايو.

بعدسة: أحمد أسامة

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.Moving between metaphor, archives, docume...
18/10/2026

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.

Moving between metaphor, archives, documentation, and fiction, Kush Badhwar’s Going in Circles and the accompanying film programme, Sharjah Paramount part 2, expand the lens through which architecture can be judged. They question the dominant voices that demand we accept the language of progress that has become prevalent as landscapes, histories, and futures are allowed to disappear.

Let’s Build Great Things at SAT challenges architecture to recognise a constituency it routinely speaks for but rarely listens to, while taking seriously the possibility that children see things in our cities that adults and professionals have learned not to notice.

LionHeart’s installation, Residencies of Impermanence, argues for an architecture attuned to that which cannot easily be measured, such as the value of relationships, memory, and emotional states, but which remain fundamental to how we inhabit space and live together.

In Doing Heritage, Cairo-based Megawra-BEC challenges the idea that a heritage practice’s primary concern is preservation. It highlights how vibrant communities can thrive within centuries-old built fabric and explores how a city’s built heritage can be a powerful tool not only for understanding its past, but also for imagining its future.

In a series of installations across multiple locations, Mohamad Nahleh and Ozyar Salojee’s After Night There is Nothing reclaims nighttime as both a spatial and political condition. They reposition the darkness not only as an essential part of how architecture is experienced, but also demonstrate how it can be powerfully mobilised to protest injustice and imagine alternative worlds.

Sharjah Architecture Triennial’s Old Al Jubail Vegetable Market will once again serve as a venue for the Triennial (SA...
17/10/2026

Sharjah Architecture Triennial’s Old Al Jubail Vegetable Market will once again serve as a venue for the Triennial (SAT03).

‘Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures’, examines the urgent question of how architecture can help shape collective life in a world marked by rapid urban transformation.

The opening week programme, taking place from 14 to 19 November 2026, will feature a diverse series of conversations, panel discussions, workshops, screenings, tours and other public activations across Sharjah. The programme will introduce the practices, perspectives and ideas that shape the third edition of the Triennial.

Stay tuned as we announce the opening week programme schedule!

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Register now via the link in the bio.

Image: Ahmed Osama
سيواصل سوق الجبيل القديم للخضار، التابع لترينالي الشارقة للعمارة، استضافة فعاليات الدورة الثالثة من الترينالي.

تأتي هذه الدورة بعنوان “العمارة بشكلٍ مختلف: بناء بنيةٍ مدنيةٍ لمستقبلٍ جماعي”، لتستكشف تساؤلاً ملحّاً حول الدور الذي يمكن أن تؤديه العمارة في تشكيل حياتنا الجماعية، في عالم تتسارع فيه التحولات الحضرية.

ينطلق البرنامج الافتتاحي من 14 إلى 19 نوفمبر 2026، بسلسلة من الحوارات والندوات وورش العمل وعروض الفيديو والجولات، إلى جانب برامج وأنشطة تتوزع في أنحاء مختلفة من إمارة الشارقة، وتفتح باباً للتعرّف إلى الممارسات والأفكار التي ترسم ملامح الدورة الثالثة من الترينالي.

ترقّبوا الإعلان عن تفاصيل برنامج أسبوع افتتاح النسخة الثالثة من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة!

برنامج الافتتاح مجاني ومفتوح للجمهور. سجّلوا الآن عبر الرابط في البايو.

بعدسة: أحمد أسامة

14/10/2026

One month to go! 👀

The third edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT03) opens on 14 November 2026, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Sharjah!

Curated by Vyjayanthi Rao and Tau Tavengwa, Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures explores the urgent question of how architecture can shape collective life in a world undergoing rapid urban transformation.

From 14–19 November, SAT03 will present an opening week of conversations, panel discussions, workshops, screenings, guided tours and other public activations. Taking place across Sharjah, the programme brings together diverse practices, perspectives and ideas, inviting us to rethink architecture and the worlds we build together.

In the lead-up to the Triennial, a series of public programmes and gatherings has helped shape conversations around the edition’s curatorial direction. These include ‘Meet the Curators’ (May 2025), where Curator Vyjayanthi Rao and Associate Curator Tau Tavengwa shared their early curatorial vision for ; ‘Mumbai Offsite: Architecture Otherwise’ (November 2025), co-hosted with the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA), which brought together architects, social thinkers, activists and artists to explore architecture as a social, ecological and epistemological practice; ‘Another City is Possible: Mediating Architecture’ (January 2026), an in-conversation exploring how urban space is shaped not only by buildings and infrastructure, but also by social relations, narratives and cultural practices; and ‘Staying with the Trouble: Conversations around Architecture Otherwise’ (May 2026), which turned to urban contexts shaped by destruction and instability to consider how the built environment might foster coexistence, care and interdependence.

Missed any of these conversations? Catch up on the materials and recordings available on our website at sharjaharchitecture.org, as well as on our YouTube and Vimeo channels.

Head to the link in our bio to register for our opening week programme. The full schedule will be announced soon!

A glimpse of our beloved Al Qasimiyah School, Sharjah Architecture Triennial headquarters. It features a network of op...
12/10/2026

A glimpse of our beloved Al Qasimiyah School, Sharjah Architecture Triennial headquarters. It features a network of open courtyards that were historically used as playgrounds and meeting spaces. Al Qasimiyah School will once again serve as a venue for the third edition of Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT03).

‘Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures’, examines the urgent question of how architecture can help shape collective life in a world marked by rapid urban transformation.

The opening week programme, taking place from 14 to 19 November 2026, will feature a diverse series of conversations, panel discussions, workshops, screenings, tours and other public activations across Sharjah. The programme will introduce the practices, perspectives and ideas that shape the third edition of the Triennial.

Stay tuned for the opening week programming that you won’t want to miss!

The opening programme is free and open to the public. Register now via the link in the bio.

Image: Ahmed Osama
نقدم لكم لمحة عن مدرسة القاسمية، المقر الرئيسي لترينالي الشارقة للعمارة. تضم المدرسة مجموعة مترابطة من المساحات المفتوحة التي استُخدمت تاريخياً كساحات لَعِب ومساحات للحركة والتنقل. ستكون مدرسة القاسمية إحدى الوجهات المستضيفة للنسخة الثالثة من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة.

تأتي هذه الدورة بعنوان “العمارة بشكلٍ مختلف: بناء بنيةٍ مدنيةٍ لمستقبلٍ جماعي”، لتستكشف تساؤلاً ملحّاً حول الدور الذي يمكن أن تؤديه العمارة في تشكيل حياتنا الجماعية، في عالم تتسارع فيه التحولات الحضرية.

ينطلق البرنامج الافتتاحي من 14 إلى 19 نوفمبر 2026، بسلسلة من الحوارات والندوات وورش العمل وعروض الفيديو والجولات، إلى جانب برامج وأنشطة تتوزع في أنحاء مختلفة من إمارة الشارقة، وتفتح باباً للتعرّف إلى الممارسات والأفكار التي ترسم ملامح الدورة الثالثة من الترينالي.

ترقّبوا الإعلان عن تفاصيل برنامج أسبوع افتتاح النسخة الثالثة من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة!

برنامج الافتتاح مجاني ومفتوح للجمهور. سجّلوا الآن عبر الرابط في البايو.

بعدسة: أحمد أسامة

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.Hiba Bou Akar, Mohamad Hafeda, and Nathal...
08/10/2026

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.

Hiba Bou Akar, Mohamad Hafeda, and Nathalie Harb’s Patch-Time / zamaniyyāt muraqqaʿa reframes displacement not simply as rupture, but also through what people carry with them: memories, materials, rituals, skills, and relationships that become essential resources for rebuilding life.

In Make-In Afrika: Making as Circular Praxis, Kevin Kimwele and Indalo World challenge architecture to embrace circularity as more than a material strategy. It is a way to harness the architectural intelligence that exists within communities that build, repair, and reuse under constraint, and to redistribute both resources and agency.

Karachi LaJamia’s Yaad-Aavari shows that communities are not contexts for architecture. They are living classrooms into which anyone can enter to learn, and in which professionals may participate by first listening closely to the architectural, political, social, and other forms of knowledge already present within — and then to which they can meaningfully and generously contribute.

With her installation, South South Stone Soup, designer and writer Keller Easterling makes a direct appeal for reparations and a challenge to entrenched control of resources and power by government and wealthy institutions. South South Stone Soup is a call to action, and a dare to architecture to be part of that action.

History as Repair positions conservation, documentation, and rehabilitation as forms of civic repair. It presents community architecture as a vessel capable of suturing division, and dares us to look to the past to imagine other possible futures — ones built, quite literally, through negotiation and cohabitation.

07/10/2026

The final chapter of George Arbid’s three-city documentary journey explores Tunis.

Commissioned by Sharjah Architecture Triennial as part of A Journey into Architecture Archives: Baghdad, Damascus, Tunis, the film brings archival research into contact with the buildings and landscapes of the present, uncovering stories held within drawings, photographs, documents and memories.

Building on the inaugural 2023 edition, which focused on Beirut, Cairo and Rabat, the exhibition seeks to foster knowledge production about the region from within its own communities while contributing to the development of a shared archival database.

The Baghdad, Damascus and Tunis edition brings together materials from private collections and institutional archives, including reproductions of architectural drawings, documents and models, largely dating from 1930 to 1980.

Watch the full recording of the opening programme and the full documentaries on our YouTube or Vimeo channels through the link shared in our bio.

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.BARDStudio’s Where We Sing, Cook and Weav...
05/10/2026

Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures.

BARDStudio’s Where We Sing, Cook and Weave challenges institutions not simply to produce new terminology, but to recognise and learn from forms of knowledge that are already present on the ground.

In Moving Pluralisms Brent Kokonya and Dennis Maraguri show that some of the most important civic spaces are not built at all. They exist in-between spaces such as public transit, where the matatu serves as a powerful platform for exchange.

Cassim Shepard’s film installation, Housing Agency, is a reminder that many of the alternatives architecture seems to be painstakingly searching for today have already been imagined, tested, and in some cases implemented.

Chloë Bass and Bill Deitz’s installation, The Wheels Hum a Song, asks a provocative question: If sound, mutability, and non-linguistic expressive communication were placed at the centre of how we conceive of and build space, how might the spaces we share change?

Curry J. Hackett’s installation, Open the School, reminds us that many practices now described as “participatory”, “distributed”, or “community-led” have long histories. His project plants a proud flag in homage to the depth of collective knowledge embedded within African American history, and how this history offers frameworks for learning shaped by community, mutual support, and sociocultural relationships to land.

04/10/2026

The second chapter of George Arbid’s documentary journey takes us through Damascus, alongside visits to Homs, Latakia and Aleppo.

Commissioned by Sharjah Architecture Triennial for A Journey into Architecture Archives: Baghdad, Damascus, Tunis, the film brings archival material into dialogue with buildings, memories and the people who encountered them; revealing stories of a changing architectural landscape.

Building on the inaugural 2023 edition, which focused on Beirut, Cairo and Rabat, the exhibition seeks to foster knowledge production about the region from within its own communities while contributing to the development of a shared archival database.

The Baghdad, Damascus and Tunis edition brings together materials from private collections and institutional archives, including reproductions of architectural drawings, documents and models, largely dating from 1930 to 1980.

Watch the full recording of the opening programme and the full documentaries on our YouTube or Vimeo channels through the link shared in our bio.

We are excited to announce the opening of the third edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT03), Architecture ...
01/10/2026

We are excited to announce the opening of the third edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT03), Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures, taking place from 14 November 2026 to 14 April 2027 across Sharjah city and the wider Emirate.

Curated by Vyjayanthi Rao with Tau Tavengwa as Associate Curator, brings together 35 participants working across architecture, art, design, urbanism, research and other fields to explore how architecture can contribute to collective life in a rapidly changing world.

The opening programme, running from 14 November 2026 to 19 November 2026, will bring together a diverse series of conversations, lectures, workshops, screenings, tours and other activations across Sharjah, introducing the practices and ideas that shape the third edition of the Triennial.

The opening programme is free and open to the public. You can reserve your spot through the link in our bio. Stay tuned as we release the opening programme schedule.

We look forward to welcoming you to Sharjah!


يسرّنا الإعلان عن موعد انطلاق الدورة الثالثة من ترينالي الشارقة للعمارة، بعنوان “العمارة بشكل مختلف: بناء بنية مدنية لمستقبلٍ جماعي”، والتي تُقام في الفترة من 14 نوفمبر 2026 حتى 14 أبريل 2027، وتمتد عبر مجموعة من المواقع في مختلف أنحاء إمارة الشارقة.

وانطلاقاً من موضوع هذه الدورة، الذي يتعمّق في دور العمارة وقدرتها على دعم الحياة في عالمٍ يشهد تحولات متسارعة، يجتمع 35 مشاركاً من مجالات العمارة والفن والتصميم والتخطيط الحضري والبحث وغيرها من التخصصات، لتقديم مشاريع ورؤى تتناول هذه الأسئلة من زوايا متعددة، بإشراف القيّمة فيجايانثي راو، وبمشاركة تاو تافينغا بصفته القيّم الفني المشارك.

وينطلق البرنامج الافتتاحي من 14 إلى 19 نوفمبر 2026، بسلسلة من الجلسات والمحاضرات وورش العمل والعروض والجولات، إلى جانب برامج وأنشطة تتوزع في أنحاء مختلفة من إمارة الشارقة، وتفتح باباً للتعرّف إلى الممارسات والأفكار التي ترسم ملامح الدورة الثالثة من الترينالي.

البرنامج الافتتاحي مجاني ومفتوح للجمهور.
سجلوا الآن عبر الرابط في البايو، وترقّبوا الإعلان عن الجدول التفصيلي للبرنامج.

نتطلّع إلى لقائكم والترحيب بكم في الشارقة!

Address

Al Qasimiyah Primary School, Sheikh Saqr Bin Khalid Al Qasimi Street, Al Manakh Area, UAE
Sharjah

Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 05:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00

Telephone

+971 (0)6 526 5555

Website

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