Abeer Seikaly: Weaving a Home

Abeer Seikaly es una creadora interdisciplinaria jordana que trabaja en arquitectura, diseño, artes plásticas y producción cultural (vea la biografía).

Su proyecto Weaving a Home desarrolla un sistema material estructural performativo, que honra la noción de eco-efectividad en la arquitectura y desafía los modos de vida contemporáneos.

Historically, communities in the Arab world were inextricably connected to nature and their surroundings, both inside and outside of their homes. In a modern world governed by consumerism and urbanism, and threatened by a burgeoning climate crisis, the notion of cradle-to-cradle living and design, which embeds nature and sustainability into all processes of life, is needed now more than ever. Shelter is a microcosm that represents how we understand and connect to the universe and to our bodies. Creating a shelter that sustains and supports the thriving of the human spirit and the nurturing of our environment forms the crux of this work.

Weaving a Home has gone through multiple phases since its inception in 2013. The objective was to build a portable, dignified shelter for displaced communities that provides them with the necessities of contemporary life through the development of a double-layered performative structural fabric in the form of a dome. However, the design’s contextual link to land, culture and heritage highlighted the need to consider the wellbeing of different communities beyond simply providing functional solutions. How can the design of a shelter truly create added value?

Using local resources and the intuitive hands of a community of craftsmen and women, the new material system merges mechanics and design, while drawing inspiration from traditional tent-crafting methods that have community and sustainability at their core. Resilient and collapsible, the dome represents a continuity in the evolution of place-making that is not linear but rather circular–rooted in the present, but watered, fed and nurtured by its past.