AT talks to… Azza Aboualam, architect and curator of the UAE National Pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, about her Biennale highlights so far and the UAE pavilion Pressure Cooker which addresses how local food production has adapted to evolving climate challenges.
What is your pavilion about and how does it respond to the title of Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective?
The main idea of the pavilion is to explore the overlap between food production and architecture in the UAE, specifically within arid environments. Pressure Cooker examines how local food production has adapted to climatic challenges over time. With climate change being a pressing issue, and arid climates expanding into more regions, the project asks: how can locally developed knowledge and ingenuity be shared and applied more broadly on an international scale?
The central research question is: using the UAE as a case study, how can architecture be mobilized to support greater food security? The project focuses on the greenhouse as its primary typology of exploration. A kit of parts was developed by breaking down the greenhouse into its essential architectural elements: floor, wall, roof, tools and materials, and shade. These components are then mixed and matched to create different assemblies, three of which are presented in the exhibition today.
What other pavilions have been a highlight for you?
One that stood out to me was the Bahraini Pavilion. It shares a similar theme of passive cooling, which we are also exploring through the greenhouse assemblies. However, it offers a very different take on how that concept can be expressed within an exhibition design space.
What else are you excited to see?
I am looking forward to going back and spending more time with the Bahraini Pavilion, as well as visiting the Lebanese Pavilion, and the Cordillera. I have heard such good things about the projects there this year.
If you were a student coming to the Biennale for the first time, what would be your advice to them?
Spend as much time as you can in different pavilions. Talk to the people who are there and ask questions. Read the wall texts thoroughly, and take time to reflect and form your own opinions about the spaces. I think many of them offer instigations of new ideas that can inspire everyone—whether you’re a student or not.
What else are you working on at the moment?
Planning my next vacation.
Azza Aboualamis an Emirati architect and curator of the National Pavilion UAE for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition –La Biennale di Venezia in 2025. She is an Assistant Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University, Dubai, UAE, and a Co-founder and Director of Research at Holesum Studio, an interdisciplinary architecture and design practice based between New York, USA, and Sharjah, UAE. She co-founded the studio in 2021 a few years after graduating from the Yale School of Architecture. The Biennale will run from Saturday 10 May to Sunday 23 November 2025.
