Diving & Heritage Village, Al Shindagha

Commissioned by Dubai Municipality to open alongside the 1997 Dubai Shopping Festival, the Diving & Heritage Village was built to showcase the pearl-diving and seafaring traditions that shaped the emirate before oil.

AWAJ's role centered on auditing design documentation and providing project management consultancy through a schedule that had zero flexibility — the village had to be ready for the festival's opening, full stop. It became one of the firm's earliest public-sector cultural commissions, ahead of decades of institutional and civic work that followed.