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The UAE’s Vision 2030 imagines a nation where heritage and innovation live side by side. Students will become the designers of Museum 2030, tasked with preserving fragile artifacts, revealing their stories in engaging, multi-sensory ways, and reimagining displays that merge heritage, technology, and imagination.
Using inspiration from museum techniques and beyond, students will design a small- to medium-scale display that could actually be built, focusing on one sense—sight, sound, touch, or smell—that best suits their artifact and lets audiences experience it meaningfully.
Studio Brief
Mock up Prototype
Final Prototype
Sketch
Studio Process
Final Project Expectations
Students will design and build a small- to medium-scale museum display that brings a fragile artifact to life, blending heritage, technology, and imagination.
Students will draw build their projects using materials such as cardboard, paper, and digital fabrication tools (3D printing, laser cutting, or electronics) to prototype custom components that merge heritage and innovation.
Your display should preserve and reveal the artifact’s story in an engaging, multi-sensory way. Focus on one sense—sight, sound, touch, or smell—that best fits your artifact and helps visitors experience it meaningfully.
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Studio Skills
Collaboration
Concept Development
Lo-Fi Prototyping
Positive Impact
Product Design
Hi-Fidelity prototyping
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1,200–300 B.H.
~210,000 B.H.
6,000–4,000 B.H
Stone tools at Jebel Faya, Fujairah rock shelters.
Neolithic settlements, burials (Jebel Buhais, Sharjah).
3,200–2,000 B.H.
Umm an-Nar (Early Bronze Age) tomb towers, trade.
Iron Age forts, irrigation (Muweilah, Al Thuqeibah).
Dawn & Early Civilizations (Before Hijra)
earliest Bronze Age burial structures in the UAE
40–150 AH / 660–767 CE
200–500 AH / 816–1106 CE
600–1000 AH / 1203–1592 CE
Oldest known mosques at Al Bidyah (Fujairah)
Coastal settlements such as Julfar (Ras al-Khaimah) thrive on pearling and trade across the Indian Ocean.
Fortifications and trading posts in Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah; local Islamic culture and seafaring continue.
Early Islam & Medieval UAE (After Hijra)
1,200 AH / late 18th c. CE
1,340 AH / early 20th c. CE
1,391 AH / 1971 CE
Coastal tribes form alliances; forts built at Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah to protect pearling and trade.
Trucial States period under British protection; Dubai Creek expands as a trading hub. (Pearl divers tools)
Union of seven emirates forms the United Arab Emirates.
From Emirates Era to the Modern UAE (After Hijra)
The UAE’s Vision 2030 imagines a nation where heritage and innovation live side by side. By 2030, museums will no longer be just storage spaces for fragile artifacts, but living laboratories of culture, where visitors can see, hear, touch, and even feel the past.
Students will become the designers of Museum 2030, tasked with preserving fragile artifacts, revealing their stories in engaging, multi-sensory ways, and reimagining displays that merge heritage, technology, and imagination. Using inspiration from museum techniques and beyond, students will design a small- to medium-scale display that could actually be built, focusing on one sense—sight, sound, touch, or smell—that best suits their artifact and lets audiences experience it meaningfully.