Collaboration with Sara Al Humaidhi and Sara Ann Joseph

‘Qallaf’ a Bahraini word that refers to a ship maker. Bu Ali, one of the remaining artisans refers to it as a ‘Sultanic’ profession, “It is inspired, we do not follow measurements or rules, we learned the trade from the stories of our ancestors” Ship making is one of the oldest trades in Bahrain, and it is sadly a dying profession. The introduction of fiber glass ships replaced the traditional wooden ships. Only 5 people are left in Bahrain who practice this trade.

‘Qallaf’ is a project that was a result of a design research workshop conducted by Mawane’ in Bahrain. The aim of the workshop was to research ways in which a design of a pavilion can be inspired by the traditional ship making trade in Bahrain.

‘Qallaf’ is a resesarch project that addressed ways in which the tricks of the trade can be sustained by proposing a collaboration between the ship makers building techniques and contemporary designers. Inspired by the curves of the ships, and the wood bending technique that the artisans used, ‘Qallaf’ proposed a series of steam bent teak wood that formed the skin of the pavilion. The technique was directly taught by the artisans by “listening to the wood and taking the form it wants to take rather than imposing a form on the wood.”

Arch + Edu was a module that was part of the Architecture Masters degree in the University at Buffalo. It identified a gap in creative education in the public school systems and proposed a program in which an Architecture student, an Architect professional and a public School teacher collaborated to create a module that relates a school subject with the basics of Architecture.

The first module was designed for the third grade in School #33 with Mrs. Samantha Rae. The kids were taught the basics of architectural design,and designing with empathy. Each group were assigned an animal that they had to conduct their own research on, its habitat, the environment the animal lives in, and design and model a habitat for that animal using basics of drawings in plans, sections and elevations and basic model making.