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Metropolis Editors, Natural Habitat, sustainability, sustainable architecture

METROPOLIS Introduces Natural Habitat, a Sustainable Homes Video Series

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image of a dome like structure by abeer seikaly
WEAVING A HOME: This portable shelter for displaced communities is made from a double-layered performative structural fabric in the form of a dome. COURTESY ABEER SEIKALY

December 11, 2024

Abeer Seikaly Weaves Nomadic Architecture with New Technologies

Rooted in ancestral knowledge, work by the Jordanian-Palestinian architect and designer addresses present and future challenges. 

By: Peter Lukas

Jordanian-Palestinian architect and designer Abeer Seikaly synthesizes her ancestry with 21st-century design expertise and technology. She aims to address the collective displacement caused by climate disasters and political turmoil and, in the process, asks: What about architecture is permanent? 

“Architecture is not a static thing,” she says, “but an ever-evolving event and process of becoming. [It]’s a dynamic and interactive system that goes beyond mere physical structures.” This is an apt description of the theory behind and the material construction of her ongoing project Weaving a Home, which offers a durable, lightweight, and transportable tent for displaced people. The design for the prototype—a collapsible dome structure that provides climate control like heating and ventilation, renewable energy, and running water—draws on traditional Bedouin weaving techniques as well as Seikaly’s cultural and political heritage.

Bedouins, a historically nomadic Arab tribe, are characterized by their resourcefulness and intricate hand craftwork—the spirit of which imbues Seikaly’s design. The group’s traditional weaving practices have been used (primarily by women like her great-grandmother) for thousands of years to make rugs or Beit-al-sha’ar, a mobile tent made out of materials like sheep and goat wool.  

Image of a woman holding fibers
MEETING POINTS: An ongoing communal architecture program, Meeting Points aims to become a flagship for how architecture and design processes can act as instruments for social change. COURTESY EDMUND SUMNER
image of an exhibition by abeer seikaly
MEETING POINTS: This structural and spatial exploration is an interplay of materials, construction techniques, and delicate and precise design processes. COURTESY ABEER SEIKALY.

“Featuring a stable double-membrane enclosure, [the prototype] offers dignified living conditions while harnessing renewable energy and collecting water. [It is] made of local materials and a technical, structural fabric,” Seikaly explains. “This lightweight structure challenges contemporary building practices and modes of living, highlighting architecture’s potential as a social technology.” Combining traditional methods with modern technological practice, she has produced a practical and sustainable structure that can shelter refugees fleeing political crises like her father’s family, who were forced out of Palestine. Beyond its functional impact, Weaving a Home engages with the communities (particularly the women within those communities) it’s meant to support, in both the design and building process. 

This approach extends to Seikaly’s other “extra-architectural” projects like Meeting Points, a related communal endeavor that she established to situate architecture in its creative-cultural form and explore the intersection of “material and structure, between natural and designed space, and between designer and community.”

Seikaly’s commitment to exploring not just past technical practices but the cultural contexts in which they were developed is not only admirable but necessary for architecture to adequately address fallout from increasing sociopolitical unrest and climate catastrophe. Having left a previous career in luxury retail design, which she says was “innovative and dynamic” but often left her feeling disconnected, she says she’s made a shift “rooted in a desire to reconnect with my heritage and address the broader social and environmental challenges facing our region.” 

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