Say hi
Aerial view of a terraced, stepped tower rising from the shallows beside a beach, with the city beyond.

Árdh — أرض — land, earth. A research practice on how shared places hold memory.

Árdh

(Scroll down)

Land, earth.
Building memories

(The studio)

Árdh is an architecture research practice in Abu Dhabi, led by Omran Alowais. Founded as his studio in 2003 and renamed Árdh in 2016, it studies how shared places like a nursery, a ruin, a mountain or a place of prayer hold memory, and asks what architecture could be if it started there.

Most of the work here is unbuilt: prototypes, proposals, questions drawn at full scale. They are made to be tested, argued with and carried forward.

Say hi

Est. 2003
Abu Dhabi

Research

Three ways in. Conceptual studies, research, and practical thinking: questions worked on over years, without a client.

Practical Thinking is a short column on architecture, cities and the everyday spaces of the UAE.

Sketch for It Was the Pencil, Then the Mouse, and Now the "Partner"Latest column · 25 October 2026It Was the Pencil, Then the Mouse, and Now the "Partner"

// Conceptual Studies

View all