Neonomads: Between Education and Practice

This paper examines the inherent intermediary realities of design-build within a continuum of academia and practice through the presentation of a series of “in-betweens” associated with a year-long design-build studio, a mobile shelter and research station for the Sharjah Environment and Protected Areas Authority (EPAA) sited within the extreme climatic conditions of the Arabian Desert. It analyzes a set of liminal, cultural, and environmental conditions and how they defined the design process; the way in which we engaged the community; and the resulting architecture as an assessment of the studio experience from the conceptual through to the deployment of built work. The impetus for the studio was a fascination with the Empty Quarter of the Rub’ al Khali, one of the most isolated places on Earth and until recently referred to as “terra incognita”, and the intersection between the disappearing Bedouin culture and the rapidly developing and modernizing culture of the United Arab Emirates. For thousands of years, the Bedouins have traversed the Arabian deserts and are the only masters of their more than 650,000 square kilometers of ancient sands. The first foreign explorers were not able to penetrate the Quarter until 1931, with the first accurate Western maps made by Thesiger between 1946 and 1950. Since then, only a few extreme adventurers have attempted its crossing, leaving the rest of us to wonder at its edge.