Fahad Al ObaidlyFor Fahad Al Obaidly, design is more than an aesthetic expression. It is a reflection of cultural identity, collective memory and the evolving relationship between tradition and innovation. As Director of Design Doha, he is at the forefront of Qatar’s growing creative landscape, championing a new generation of designers while positioning the region as an influential force in international design. With a background spanning heritage, fashion and culture, Al Obaidly approaches design as a living discipline, one that draws upon ancestral craftsmanship, local materials and contemporary experimentation. Following its inaugural edition in 2024, Design Doha continues to expand its reach in 2026, bringing together more than 250 designers and studios from across the SWANA region and its diasporas, with exhibitions, commissions and collaborations that explore the intersection of creativity, community and cultural preservation.
In an exclusive interview with IFDM, Al Obaidly reflects on the ambitions driving Design Doha, the importance of developing a distinctive regional design language and the expanding role of collectible design in the Middle East. From the responsibility of collectors and institutions to the preservation of traditional craftsmanship and the emergence of new creative voices, he shares his vision for a future in which regional designers are not simply participating in the global conversation but actively shaping it. At the heart of his philosophy lies a commitment to creating a sustainable design ecosystem, one where heritage is continually reinterpreted, creativity is supported and design becomes an integral part of everyday life.
As Director of Design Doha, how do you define your role beyond simply overseeing a biennial? What do you want Design Doha to build for the region long term?
I see my role as building the conditions that allow design to thrive, not just delivering a biennial every two years. Design Doha was established under the leadership of Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums. With her continued vision and guidance, that means supporting designers before, during and after the exhibition: commissioning new work, connecting them with production, publishing and international audiences, and making sure the knowledge stays here while also benefiting global communities. Bu’ed Nadhar, the exhibition by Liwan Design Studios and Labs, puts it well: foresight means deciding what deserves to endure and what needs to transform. Long term, I want Design Doha to be a permanent part of the region’s creative infrastructure, with a recognised voice, a pipeline of talent and a public that understands and values design as part of everyday life.
The first edition established Design Doha as a major platform for regional design. What did you learn from 2024, and what has changed in your approach for the 2026 edition?
2024 taught us that there is a real appetite, among designers and audiences alike, for a platform that takes this region seriously. It also showed us where the gaps are in production, funding and support. In 2026, we have grown in scale, with more than 15 exhibitions and more than 250 designers and studios from across the SWANA region and its diasporas. We have also grown in depth. We are centred on Fereej Al Asmakh, so design is tied to a living neighbourhood and community, and we are commissioning more new work than ever before. Arab Design Now alone includes 78 new commissions and 16 new short video works, and the Public Design Commissions drew more than 320 applications from 45 nationalities.
Design Doha speaks about design as a form of knowledge shaped by landscape, materials, craft and memory. How does that thinking translate into the exhibitions and designers you choose to present?
For us, design is not only about the finished object. It carries knowledge about how people have lived with a landscape, worked with materials and passed skills from one generation to the next. That is the lens we use when selecting exhibitions and designers. We look for practitioners who start from a place, a material or a tradition and push it forward with rigour. Arab Design Now 2026 is built around themes such as Land and Agrarian Practices and Crafts, Technology and Community, because those questions sit at the centre of how design is made here. That thinking runs through the Arab Design Now threads, from Agrarian Practices to Landscapes of Production and Landscapes of Extraction, and through Design from Oasis, Ithra’s exhibition on the date palm and palm weaving (khoos) as a cultural and ecological anchor. Post-Oil, from the Saudi Modern Initiative, examines how glass, concrete, steel, aluminium and asphalt reshaped the material economy of the GCC and the Arab region, and with it traditional urban forms.
How important is it for Qatar to create its own design narrative rather than looking primarily towards established design capitals in Europe and elsewhere?
It is essential. Looking to established design capitals will always be valuable, and we want to be in conversation with them. But a design culture that only reflects other people’s references will never be fully confident. Qatar and the wider region have their own climate, materials, craft traditions and social structures, and these should shape the questions we ask and the answers we produce. Our Public Design Commissions show what that looks like. Shoreline resurfaces Doha’s lost coastline through the language of the Qatari dhow, Salsabil builds on Qatar’s heritage of water-cooling and ceramic craft, and Palm Construct revisits how traditional Qatari builders used the whole palm, from trunk beams to arish roofs and khoos mats. And when we welcome international voices, such as Fernando Laposse’s The Sower for Qatar’s Year of Culture with Mexico in 2026, it is as an exchange between desert ecologies, not an import. Building our own narrative is not about turning inwards. It is about arriving at the global conversation with something distinctive to contribute.
You have worked across heritage, culture, fashion and design. How has your own understanding of Qatari tangible and intangible heritage influenced the way you lead Design Doha?
Heritage has never been abstract for me. Working across culture, fashion and design has shown me that tangible heritage, such as architecture, textiles and materials, and intangible heritage, such as oral history, ritual and craft knowledge, are inseparable. That shapes how I lead Design Doha. I want us to treat heritage as a living resource that is understood, questioned and renewed by each generation, rather than something kept behind glass. Fereej Al Asmakh, a historic district where people still live and work, is a good example of that approach. Threading the Ceremony, by Studio Design LO, is rooted in the Sudanese Jirtig marriage ritual and asks what it means to preserve a living ceremony in a time of rupture. Aslan’s Love Story, by Turquoise Mountain, links four Palestinian craft traditions to the five stages of a traditional wedding, so objects carry ritual as well as form.
How do you balance preserving traditional craftsmanship with encouraging designers to reinterpret it through contemporary materials, technology and new forms of production?
I do not think they are in tension. Craft is a living body of knowledge, and it stays alive only when it is practised, challenged and adapted. Our role is to create space for both: to honour the mastery of artisans and to back designers who bring new tools, materials or production methods to the table. Our partnerships with organisations such as Turquoise Mountain and the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council matter for this reason. The best results come when makers and designers collaborate as equals, so the reinterpretation grows out of the craft rather than being imposed on it. Aslan’s Love Story, curated by George Tadros with Turquoise Mountain, brings a designer and Palestinian master artisans, such as fourth-generation tile-maker Anan Aslan, into one project. The Muqarnas of Sadu, from Kuwait’s Al Sadu Society, rebuilds Bedouin Sadu weaving patterns as an aluminium muqarnas dome. In The Thread That Binds, by TheLoveTriangle Collective, weavers and visitors build an architectural installation together, so the process of making becomes the exhibit.
Do you see a distinctive design language emerging from the SWANA region today, and if so, what defines it?
I think one is emerging, but I would be careful about reducing it to a single look. What I see is a shared sensibility: a deep attention to material and place, a close relationship with craft, a willingness to draw on memory and storytelling, and an awareness of migration and belonging. Designers participating in Design Doha from across the MENASA region often work with scarcity and abundance, tradition and rapid change, at the same time. That tension produces work with real character. You see it in The Thread That Binds, where khous and khaizaran weaving in palm fronds, reeds and cane shares motifs and methods across borders, and in Monumental, where HouHou traces the plastic Monobloc chair through collective Arab memory. Beyond the Letters, by TypeArabY, brings Arabic and Persian typography into the same conversation. The 2026 programme brings together practitioners from 27 countries, so audiences can see both what connects them and how different they are.
Collectible design has become increasingly important internationally, sitting somewhere between art, craft and functional design. How do you see the collectible-design market developing in Qatar and the wider Middle East?
I am optimistic. Qatar and the wider Middle East have collectors who are curious, ambitious and increasingly engaged with design, not just art. What the market needs now is depth: more galleries with a clear point of view, more critical writing, more commissioning, and more transparency around editions and provenance. If we get that right, collectible design can become a serious pillar of the region’s creative economy. Design Doha’s role is to bring designers, collectors and institutions into the same room and help build trust between them. This edition already shows the range: INTERLACED: Dialogues in Design, presented by FROMM., brings together twelve furniture and object projects chosen through an international competition, and Traces of the Desert Light, presented by SANAE, shows new collaborations such as Moss Studio with Josef Gereige and Shaikha Al-Sulaiti with Ángela Ramos Garcés.
What makes an object collectible for you? Is it rarity, craftsmanship, material, authorship, cultural meaning, experimentation, or something less tangible?
For me, it starts with intention. A collectible object has a clear point of view, whether that comes from exceptional craftsmanship, a material that tells a story, or an idea that pushes the boundaries of the discipline. Rarity matters, but rarity alone is not enough. Authorship and cultural meaning give an object a life beyond the market. Process matters too. In Light & Process, MODEEN shows more than a decade of luminary objects, from sketch to prototype to final piece, so the intention behind each object is visible. The pieces I find most compelling are the ones you want to return to because they reveal something new each time. In the end, I think it is also about emotion: the object has to move you.
Do you think regional designers need to create limited editions and collectible pieces in order to build international recognition, or is there a danger of designing specifically for the collector?
Limited editions can be a useful route. They give designers a way to fund experimentation, to work with exceptional artisans and to enter international galleries and collections. But there is a danger if the collector becomes the only audience. The strongest designers I know start from their own questions and let the market follow. My advice would be to keep a foot in both worlds, with collectible work that sustains experimentation and also work that reaches a wider public. The Public Design Commissions show the second path: more than 320 applications arrived, and projects such as Falajscape and Cooling Pots are conceived for public space, not for a collector’s home. Recognition built on substance lasts far longer than recognition built on demand.
Many of the strongest collectible pieces coming from this region draw on craft traditions and local materials. How can designers transform heritage without reducing it to decoration or nostalgia?
By working with it seriously and with the people who hold it. Decoration and nostalgia usually appear when a tradition is treated as a visual reference rather than a body of knowledge. The designers who succeed spend time with artisans, understand why a material or technique evolved the way it did, and then ask what it could become. They also credit their collaborators and invest in their communities. When heritage informs the structure, process and idea of a piece, and not only its surface, it feels contemporary and rooted at once. Falajscape reinterprets the ancient falaj as stainless-steel channels guiding water by gravity through urban spaces, and Cooling Pots uses a suspended canopy of terracotta pots to cool the air by evaporation. In both, what carries over is the principle, not the pattern.
What infrastructure is still missing for a stronger collectible-design ecosystem in the region, whether galleries, collectors, institutions, commissions, education or production facilities?
We still need more of almost everything, and that is an opportunity. We need galleries that champion the region’s designers and represent them internationally. We need collectors and patrons who commission, not just buy. We need institutions that acquire and archive contemporary design, strong education pathways, and production facilities where designers can prototype and produce at a high standard without leaving the region. Design Doha is working on several of these at once, through commissions, coaching programmes, the Design Doha Prize and partnerships with studios and labs such as Liwan, but no single organisation can do it alone. Some of it is already visible in this edition. Matter Diplopia, by Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar), brings faculty, students and alumni together to combine traditional modes of making with emerging technologies, and the Public Design Commissions, powered by the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), show what an institution can do when it commissions.
How important are collectors themselves in shaping the future of design? Can collecting become a way of preserving contemporary cultural history, particularly in a region changing as quickly as the Gulf?
Collectors are essential. They provide the financial support that allows designers to take risks, and they also act as custodians. When someone acquires a piece, they take responsibility for its preservation and its story. In a region that is changing as quickly as ours, this matters a great deal. Collecting thoughtfully can ensure that the work of this generation, and the context behind it, remains accessible to those who come after. Irthi’s Design Labs II is an example: the six collections on view form part of the core archival collection of the future Irthi Museum, so the craft knowledge and collaborations behind them are kept as a record. The best collectors see themselves as part of a cultural record, and they are willing to share their collections with the public.
When you look at the next generation of designers coming from Qatar and the wider SWANA region, what are you hoping they will bring to the global conversation that has not been seen before?
I hope they bring their own confidence. Not a response to what the world expects from the region, but work that begins with their own experiences, questions and ambitions. This generation is more connected, more technically fluent and more willing to collaborate across disciplines than any before it. I would like to see them tackle big issues such as climate, resources, urban life and community, and do so with a perspective shaped by where they come from. The Public Design Commissions drew more than 320 applications from 45 nationalities, and the finalists already take on heat, water and public space: Cooling Pots, Falajscape and Salsabil. The projects come from studios in the UAE, Lebanon, France, Morocco and Spain, which tells me the conversation is already global. The message I give them is that they do not need to wait for permission, because the platform is here.
If we were to look back at Design Doha ten years from now, what would make you feel that the biennial had truly succeeded?
I would feel it had succeeded if design were part of the everyday conversation in Qatar and the wider region, valued by the public, taught seriously in schools and supported by a strong professional ecosystem. I would want to see ideas first tested in this edition, such as Falajscape’s reading of the falaj or Palm Construct’s reading of arish and khoos, grow into lasting work in climate adaptation and low-carbon building. I would want to see designers who first showed with us leading studios, winning international commissions and mentoring others. And I would want the neighbourhoods we have worked in to be livelier and better for the people who live there. If it feels as though Design Doha helped the region find its voice, and that voice is now heard around the world, that would be success for me.
