The Third Sharjah Architecture Triennale (SAT03) is scheduled to run from November 14, 2026, to April 14, 2027. The exhibition will be titled Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures. The curation is led by anthropologist Vijayanti Rao, with Tau Tavengwa serving as associate curator.
Exhibition Content and Focus
The exposition will feature 32 participants working in fields such as architecture, anthropology, urbanism, art, design, education, and social practices. The public opening will take place on November 14, and the Triennale will present itself through installations, films, archives, masterclasses, performances, and public programs distributed across Sharjah, transforming the city into a platform for dialogue and engagement.
Instead of focusing exclusively on buildings and formal design, the concept of Architecture Otherwise examines the systems, relationships, and infrastructures that support collective life. The exhibition explores themes such as migration, displacement, climate change adaptation, food systems, public space, heritage, education, mobility, and collective memory, presenting architecture as a practice integrated into everyday social and political realities.
Participant Projects and Research
Many of the presented projects were developed through extensive research and residency programs in Sharjah, allowing authors to interact directly with the multilayered urban context while responding to both local narratives and broader global challenges.
Various installations examine architecture through the lens of mobility, adaptability, and temporary use of spaces. Heba Bu Akkar, Mohammed Hafeda, and Natalie Harb demonstrate shelter-like structures based on stories of displacement in Lebanon, utilizing materials from refugee camps and military infrastructure. Representing Turkey, Aslıhan Demirtaş, Ali Sindurok, and Dilshad Aladag present an updated version of Tumblespace—a mobile structure inspired by nomadic traditions that serves as a temporary point of meeting and dialogue.
In another part of the exhibition, the People's Architecture office reinterprets platform carts as flexible civic supports for public events, while the ABARI office develops a large-scale woven bamboo structure designed to be dismantled and relocated after the exhibition concludes. Sajja Rahman complements these spatial interventions with a film and art book analyzing displacement and forms of civic infrastructure arising after the construction of the Tarbela Dam in Pakistan.
Urban Transformation and Sustainability
The connection between infrastructure, landscape, and urban transformation is present throughout the exhibition. Kush Badhwar examines the ecological and social consequences of Navi Mumbai International Airport through a film created from the perspective of affected communities. Rajesh Vora and the National Institute of Design look at sixty years of changes along the Sabarmati River, documenting how large-scale reurbanization has altered its ecological and civic role.
Other participants explore community-driven approaches to heritage preservation and urban development, including Megawra Built Environment Collective in collaboration with RIWAQ, POCAA (Platform of Community Action and Architecture), and Social Design Collaborative. Their projects focus on researching preservation, co-creation, and the experience of migrants as foundations for imagining alternative urban futures.
Care and Ecology Issues
A group of projects dedicated to care issues, education, and ecological sustainability pushes civic infrastructure beyond the physical city. Based on research initially presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025, Azza Abualam presents Assemblies—a speculative greenhouse system studying food production and self-sufficiency in arid climates. Nashin Mahtani and Disaster Map Foundation analyze Indonesia's open disaster mapping platform PetaBencana as a model for climate change adaptation, while Kerry J. Hackett reflects on educational institutions as civic spaces, drawing on the history of Black education in the United States.
Concurrently, the collective Let's Build Great Things! collaborates with children in Sharjah to build a temporary public structure, and Kevin Kimwell / Indalo World explores methods of circular construction as a practice of collective building.
Cultural Practices and Conclusion
Some participants offer alternative ways of experiencing the city through sound, storytelling, and shared cultural practices. Badria Al Salem uses celestial navigation traditions to reinterpret civic infrastructure through ecological knowledge, while Mohammed Nahleh and Ozair Saluji explore the concept of 'night architecture' through performances, tours, and storytelling. Yamnai Choudhury and Karachi Beach Radio create an installation focused on oral histories and beach sounds as a public landscape, while the projects of Samar Halum, Sudarshan Shetty, Ziad Jamaleddin, Makrama El Kadi, Iheba Germazi, and Bay Otmani study abandoned urban spaces and places of contemplation in the modern city.
Commenting on the exhibition, curator Vijayanti Rao describes Architecture Otherwise as an exploration of how cities are experienced, co-created, and transformed through everyday social and cultural practices, rather than as isolated architectural objects. Over five months of exhibitions and public events, the third Sharjah Architecture Triennale positions architecture as a collective and evolving state, uniting diverse practices that investigate the intersections of materiality, ecology, technology, food, sound, and civic life. Additional lectures, exhibitions, and special programs will be announced before the opening of the exhibition.
International Architectural Events
News has also emerged in the field of architecture regarding international biennials. The XV São Paulo Architecture Biennial (BIAsp) has appointed Gabriela de Matos and Pedro Rossi as lead curators for its 2027 exhibition, which will focus on the theme 'Architecture, Culture, and Sovereignty.' Simultaneously, the Diriyah Biennale Foundation announced four finalists for the AlMusalla 2027 competition: Al-Jawad Pike, Civil Architecture, MILLIØNS, and NEW SOUTH, whose proposals will compete to design a new musalla for the Third Islamic Art Biennale in Jeddah. The Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2026 (TAB 2026) also unveiled the winners of its Installation Competition and Vision Competition, both developed under the curatorial theme 'How Much?', ahead of the biennale's opening this September.
