Design from within: AlUla Design Award
Where the human hand meets ancient ground: AlUla Design Award celebrates design shaped from within.
There are moments when design feels less like an object and more like a conversation — between people and place, material and memory. This spirit was palpable at the fourth edition of the AlUla Design Award, unveiled during the AlUla Arts Festival, where designers, cultural leaders, and members of the creative community gathered to celebrate work shaped by craft, attentiveness, and deep engagement with AlUla itself.
Held in Design Space AlUla in AlJadidah Arts District, the ceremony marked a meaningful chapter in Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within — an exhibition and public programme that positions design not as surface expression, but as cultural testimony. Here, making becomes a way of listening; materials speak of climate, labour, time, and tradition. Design emerges slowly, with care.
Developed by Arts AlUla, the AlUla Design Award has become a central pillar of the region’s growing design ecosystem. Now in its fourth edition, and aligned with the Year of Handicrafts, the Award invited designers from around the world to respond to the theme The Ingenuity of the Human Hand. The focus was clear: craft, process, and material intelligence as the true drivers of contemporary creation.
The response was striking. Applications arrived from designers representing 31 nationalities, underscoring AlUla’s growing resonance as a site of global creative inquiry — a place where local knowledge and international perspectives meet not in competition, but in dialogue.
Listening to place
The Product Design Award was presented to Abdulrahman Al Muftah (Qatar) for Bird Whistle (2025), a quietly poetic series of handcrafted terracotta whistles. Each piece is individually shaped and acoustically tuned to replicate the calls of bird species native to AlUla. Small and tactile, the objects invite a pause — a moment of listening that gently redirects attention from AlUla’s monumental heritage to its living biodiversity. Rooted in craft and function, Bird Whistle reminds us that design can sharpen awareness, not simply form.
Monumentality, reimagined
The Fashion Design Award went to Matthieu Gautier (MUTAGENE) of France for Monumental Miniature (2025). Inspired by the carved sandstone tombs of Hegra, the piece translates vast architectural presence into an intimate, wearable form. Balancing digital precision with hand-finishing, Gautier’s work explores how landscape can be carried on the body — how adornment can become a site where history, technology, and human gesture converge.
A living ecosystem, not a standalone moment
The ceremony unfolded within the wider framework of Material Witness, where the Design Award sits alongside the AlUla Artist Residency – Design Edition, AlUla Designathon, and Madrasat Addeera. Together, these initiatives form a living ecosystem rather than a series of isolated events. The emphasis is not on finished outcomes, but on research, experimentation, and making as ways of thinking and transmitting culture.
Across the exhibition and public talks, designers engaged with materials intrinsic to AlUla — clay, palm, stone, metal, textile, pigment — treating them not as symbols, but as active collaborators shaped by environment and time. Design here is accountable to place, grounded in local knowledge, and open to global exchange.
Judging with care and cultural depth
Jury members: Hind AlRawaf, Yoko Choy and Arnaud Morand
Projects were evaluated by an international jury whose collective expertise spans design, art, curation, publishing, and cultural production. Their approach reflected the Award’s core values: craftsmanship, material integrity, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to articulate meaningful connections between heritage and contemporary practice.
The 2025 jury comprised Guillaume Houzé, Yoko Choy, Ahmad Angawi, Hind AlRawaf, and Arnaud Morand — voices united by a shared belief that design gains strength when it is rooted, thoughtful, and responsive. At its heart, the AlUla Design Award speaks to a long-term vision: design as a living practice that carries heritage forward rather than freezing it in time. By supporting designers who work from within context — listening before shaping — the Award affirms design as a tool for continuity, relevance, and future-making.
Matthieu Gautier (MUTAGENE) and Abdulrahman Al Muftah.
The winning projects, alongside ten shortlisted finalists, are presented at Design Space AlUla as part of Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within. Visitors encounter design through material presence and sensory engagement — through the gestures of the human hand. As part of the Award, the winning works will be produced and made available across AlUla’s retail locations, extending their journey beyond the exhibition space.
In AlUla, design does not arrive fully formed. It emerges — patiently, thoughtfully — shaped by place, people, and time.
