Desert tradition becomes the shelter of the future

In many parts of the world, architecture begins under already tense conditions. Refugee life continues for years, the climate changes land and modes of movement, and the systems that support life are uneven or absent. In this context, 'utopia' is not a projection of the distant future, but moves to the question of how space is created, shared, and maintained in time.

This is where Jordanian-Palestinian designer Abeer Seikaly works. His practice draws on the long-standing knowledge inherent in craft, centering traditional textiles and material systems that respond to instability. By not separating design from its context but building within it, we treat architecture as a process that evolves with people and use.

Learning the wisdom of rescue in a Bedouin tent

What appears repeatedly throughout Seikali's work is the Bedouin tent, or 'Beit Al Sha'ar'. These tents have a history of collective production, with women traditionally leading the construction through weaving. Despite its technical and spatial sophistication, this knowledge has often been excluded from official design discourse.

The designer brings this lineage into the present through a project that translates weaving into a structural system. The emphasis is placed on how materials are handled, how connections are made, and how knowledge is shared. Here, architecture develops through interactions between designers and communities, and making is understood as a form of continuity.

‘Building a House’: New Possibilities for Refugee Shelters

In the project 'Weaving a Home', which has been ongoing since 2020, Seikali applies these ideas to the issue of shelter for refugee communities. This project responds to the reality that temporary housing, while often lasting for years, is limited in both infrastructure and social capacity.

The design takes the form of a folding dome composed of a double-layered fabric. Within this system, water, energy and environmental control are integrated into the architecture itself. Structures can be transported, expanded, and grouped with other units to form larger settlements. Each unit contributes to a wider network that can grow and adapt while supporting life.

‘Terroir’: a mobile cultural space

'Terroir', which has been underway since 2022, is a mobile cultural space developed by Seikali together with artisans in the Jordanian desert. Hand-woven wool strips are interwoven with wooden sticks to form a three-dimensional structure that can be assembled, disassembled, and transported. This structure contains the characteristics of the material and the texture of the place from which it originated.

The work is directly inspired by Bedouin land looms, where weaving has long functioned as both a production and a social practice. Inside the installation, visitors experience the space created through this process. The interior supports meetings and conversations reminiscent of the ‘majlis’ (gathering space) of a traditional tent. Each time it moves from location to location, the structure adapts, allowing new interactions to occur while maintaining a connection to its origins.

‘Meeting Point’: Reconfigurable Collective Architecture

In the 2019 work 'Meeting Points', Seikali's approach is implemented as a reconfigurable system of wood and fiber. The interwoven elements create a self-supporting grid structure that can change scale and composition. Structures are formed through tension, with each connection contributing to stability.

This project goes beyond its physical form. We propose architecture as a collective action in which the system evolves through participation.

Context of Flow: A New Paradigm in Refugee Architecture

Seikaly's work is an extension of the 'design for refugees' discourse, which has recently attracted attention in the architectural world. Since the 2010s, the prolonged temporary housing has become an international agenda due to the Syrian civil war and the increase in climate refugees, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and various architectural organizations have discussed improving the quality of refugee shelters.

While traditional refugee tents are passive shelters, Seikali's approach redefines shelters as active living environments equipped with energy and water systems. In particular, it is evaluated as an example of postcolonial design practice in that it elevated the weaving knowledge of female artisans into official architectural discourse.

Future outlook [AI analysis]

The implications of Seikali's work go beyond simply a beautiful shelter. As the climate crisis deepens and refugees increase globally, the need for transportable, scalable, and infrastructure-integrated building systems is likely to increase.

Additionally, the 'local-global' approach that combines the traditional knowledge of local communities with modern technology can become an important model for future humanitarian architecture. Just as Bedouin weaving techniques are translated into refugee shelters, the movement to rediscover and modernize indigenous architectural knowledge around the world is expected to spread.