irthi examines craft’s effect on emirati environments at milan design week 2023

Irthi showcases echoes of alchemy at milan design week 2023

Irthi explores how ingredients and craftsmanship in the domestic realm have influenced Emirati environments with the Echoes of Alchemy exhibit. Displaying at Milan Design Week 2023, the work is an exploration into materials, construction, and crafts from the United Arab Emirates. Irthi’s Echoes of Alchemy is co-curated by Milan based studio, Mr. Lawrence, and Civil Architecture.

Irthi explores how ingredients and craftsmanship have influenced Emirati environments

Running alongside the exhibition, the Milan Design Week display also aims to reconnect food culture to sustainability. The research bred a series of innovative food recipes and curated dinner experiences by Casalinghe di Tokyo, tailored with food instruments designed by Studiopepe and Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council’s designers. The tableware items experiment with clay to preserve or ferment food, and act as cooling jars or sprout towers.

The result of Echoes of Alchemy is a growing material library of recipes that reimagines the future of vernacular materials and crafts.

The exhibit runs for Milan Design Week from April 17-23 at Via Cesare Correnti, 14 in Milan.

Echoes of Alchemy exhibit displays at Milan Design Week 2023

ICCC and AUS design lab’s research builds echoes of alchemy

The Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (ICCC) is a pioneering organization based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, that promotes cultural and creative initiatives. With more than 500 artisan’s Irthi’s mission is to run programs that empower women practicing crafts whilst preserving cultural heritage. The experimental research for Echoes of Alchemy was conducted by the ICCC and the American University of Sharjah’s design labs.

images from research process

The design labs explored the subject of craft preservation on a macroscale, studying its relation to local materials, architecture, and environments. By understanding the organic materials’ ever changing role in the Emirati environment, Echoes of Alchemy hopes to revitalize it’s purpose. The result of the study led to the design of 10 new sustainable construction ‘recipes’, that can be substituted for unsustainable methods. The recipes are suggestive of a slower approach to construction, as they marry construction methods with intricate crafts. The Design Labs library of recipes invites sustainable means to production whose results may be used from cladding and building material, to upholstery.

Irthi’s mission is to empower women practicing crafts whilst preserving cultural heritage

the design labs explored the subject of craft preservation on a macroscale

contributions and goal of the publication

Years of collaboration and in-depth research have given birth to Architecture of Culture, the product of a three-way research fellowship collaboration between Design Labs II, American University of Sharjah and ICCC, which highlights the importance of looking inwards and returning to the vernacular to find local solutions for vital sectors of food security, architecture and construction, local commerce, and economic growth.

image by Obaid Al Budoor

Divided into four exhaustive subsections featuring over 100 contributors from across the globe, the publication maps the UAE’s major natural environments of palm oasis, desertscape, waterscape and mountainscape, to present the vernacular materials, architectural methods, crafts and recipes originating from each of these unique environments.

image by Obaid Al Budoor

From conception, the goal was to trace back indigenous craft and material in connection to landscape mapping, allowing the Council, and Emirati society, to go back to the essence of sourcing and site reclamation in today’s construction industry.

image by Obaid Al Budoor

exhibit utilizes architectural scenography

(images execution process and event)

The installations, conceived by Civil Architecture and designed by Mr.Lawrence Studio, is shaped around tables that display artifacts arranged on an archaeological sifting table. Muted wooden plinths allow the table to be read as a neutral background on which the items from the collection are admired. The tables act as tray platforms to the collections presented in Milan Design Week. Palm sheath, frankincense, sand, oyster shells, and limestone-based bricks and tiles create a scenography of sculptural columns which highlight the architectural capacity of the new elements developed.

images from the execution process and exhibition

the result of Echoes of Alchemy is a growing material library of recipes

the installation is conceived by Civil Architecture and designed by Mr.Lawrence Studio

the exhibition is shaped around tables that display artifacts arranged on an archaeological sifting table

muted wooden plinths allow the table to be read as a neutral background

palm sheath, frankincense, sand, oyster shells, and limestone-based bricks and tiles create a scenography

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project info:

name: Echoes of Alchemy

curator: Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council

co-curator: Mr.Lawrence | Civil Architecture

research: Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council | American University of Sharjah

associates: Studiopepe | Casalinghe di Tokyo

event: Milan Design Week, 2023

location: Via Cesare Correnti, 14, Milan

date: April 17-23

photography: Obaid Al Budoor