From the first (fashion) designer who used a leaf from the tree to cover body parts and the first (product) designer who shaped flintstone to make a tool meeting an elementary demand to the makers of mobile phones and computers, mankind has been producing objects to fulfil new requirements. These articles reflect the development of ideas, technology, living conditions and transformation of nature.

Like several other disciplines, the practice of design has now become a self-satisfying pursuit. Designers take pride in producing objects which, like works of visual art, bear the mark of their individual identity. This has led to new paths in solving the same problem since the urge to produce something extraordinary suggests new needs. Besides, through the creative intelligence of a designer, we are reminded of a long forgotten usage of a familiar item.

This was strongly felt at the opening of Global Grad Show, part of the Dubai Design Week, held from Oct 24-26, 2016 in Dubai. The students demonstrated the way our world is going to be formed in the future. Some promising projects included unusual ideas that relied on ordinary material and methods. ‘Teres’ by Renata Paraense from the Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro offered a simple solution to a complex situation. Often while travelling, a person is faced with the issue of how to pack shoes due to their size and volume. Paraense made soles of shoes which could be zipped to separate pairs, thus reducing the space and avoiding the hassle of storing different shoes for a frequent flyer.

Clea Jentsch from the Royal College of Art designed kitchenware for those who eat alone, thus limiting the usage of utensils. She combined crockery, so an enamel pan becomes a bowl, a double-sided wooden chopping board, or glass lid which can be used as a storage system. In traditional cultures, normally an item has multiple utilities (the best example is the Indian wooden cot that can serve as a bed, table, chair or a screen). Jentsch suggests a practical and elementary lifestyle for a person living on his own.

Students from leading design schools of the world provided a glimpse of how the globe would be in the near and distant future, a display that complimented ‘Abwab’ project, focusing on the tradition and culture of a region and its interaction with contemporary sensibility and requirements. Designers selected from six countries of the region (Algeria, Bahrain, India, Iraq, Palestine and UAE) installed works around the theme ‘The Human Senses’. These pavilions involved human engagement through objects or activities which had a link in the cultural past. For instance, visitors were invited to make a personal memory tile in the Indian Pavilion. In the Algerian space, they turned into musicians while interacting with shapes that represented different sounds, thus composing new rhythms.

Other participants in the Abwab also used items or themes from heritage and transformed them. Elias Anastas and Yousef Anastas in the Palestinian Pavilion developed small olive wood units which could be joined in different patterns. "Greek Orthodox monks introduced olive wood carving to Bethlehem in the 4^th century…. Today, olive wood carving represents one-third of the craft industry in Bethlehem". Similarly, ‘Future Cafeteria’ was developed at the UAE Pavilion, invoking the Emirati and Arab cultural experience, and at the same instance reminding that "The word cafeteria dates back to the mid 19^th century and its direct translation is ‘coffee shop’ in Spanish".

Along with the students’ designs and these six pavilions curated by Rawan Kashkoush, the major aspect of Dubai Design Week was the display of various products from different designers and design houses around the world. So one discovered features of a realm where form supersedes function, and beauty proceeds utility.

Amid the display of latest gadgets and chic appliances, one could find creative and innovative minds at works. For example, Honnunar Mars of Iceland presented a simple and unexpected approach towards the question of design in a modern day house. Mirrors, always in square, rectangle or circular forms were presented in shapes which were irregular or extensions of an elliptical diagram. The idea or the possibility of something which is not usually adopted marked the aesthetics of this design company.

Likewise, Mariam Hazem of Reform Studio blended chairs to make composite pieces of furniture. Taiwanese designer Craig Chen of Flexible Love created pieces of furniture with an extremely practical dimension. Made like a Chinese paper fan, his chairs and sofas could be opened to the required length and, once used, be folded inside of two outer edges of wood. The aspect of transporting a piece of furniture, like a book, appeared important mainly because the central part of those chairs was fabricated with reinforced paper.

With its delightful display, the Dubai Design Week indicated how our environment can be reshaped, restructured and revised. Each new invention or intervention, no matter how small or banal, causes a change in the way humans think about themselves and the world around them. One can witness this shift in social fabric after the introduction of smart phones, or the camera-phone which, according to Teju Cole, must be called phone-camera. Now each user is rightly called a photographer and may compete with others who are trained in the discipline. This altered world, because of mechanical or digital revolution, was experienced at the Dubai Design Week.

Each night, Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world was projected with images by different designers (Studio Mr White, Yusuke Murakami). This made one experience a powerful sensation between real and imagined, between actuality and vitality, between solidity and temporality. This was a true revelation of Dubai which represents not the present but the future of our urban civilisation.