Dubai Design Week is free: what to see at d3 from 3 to 8 November
The full programme is out: five Abwab pavilions on language, a garden pavilion by Dubai's NAO Architects, installations, workshops and a weekend Marketplace, all free to visit.
Dubai Design Week has published its full 2026 programme for its 12th edition at Dubai Design District (d3), from 3 to 8 November. The festival is free to attend and open to all ages; only Downtown Design, the design fair that runs inside it from 4 to 8 November, is ticketed.
Abwab, this year titled In Other Words, brings five practices that look at how meaning travels without speech: VARUSSI's Taleem, built on the code used in Kashmiri carpet and shawl weaving; Kanaka Raghavan's Cheent Devanagari, in layers of printed textile; Grace Shieh's A Library of Paper Memories, in handmade paper; Dalia Rafeh's Shhhhhhhh, a line of red light shaped from the Arabic letter ش; and UBIK's Non/Sense across the atrium floor.
This year's Urban Commissions winner, Three Gardens and a Room by Dubai studio NAO Architects, founded by Reem Nassour, is built on site: three gardens of shade, plants and filtered light around a shared room. Other installations include The Pleated Garden, made from palm materials, ROOTED, around a living olive tree, and The Desert Dweller, a take on the Bedouin tent. The Maker Space runs workshops such as stop motion animation and pinhole photography, and the Marketplace of regional makers is on 7 and 8 November.
Getting there: take the Metro to Dubai Mall / Burj Khalifa, then RTA bus D03 to the Dubai Design District 1 stop. Parking in d3 is free for the first two hours, then Dh20 an hour, with valet at several points. You can build your own schedule on the Dubai Design Week website or app; some workshops ask you to register.