As the third Sharjah Architecture Triennial explores architecture beyond buildings, curator Vyjayanthi Rao reflects on civic infrastructure, migration and the evolving futures of cities across the Global South.
20 August 2026
For centuries, architecture has been defined largely by the buildings it produces. Yet the third Sharjah Architecture Triennial proposes a broader understanding of the discipline, one that places equal importance on the civic, social and cultural infrastructures that shape everyday life. Opening in November 2026 under the theme Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures’, the Triennial brings together architects, researchers, artists and urban thinkers to examine how migration, rapid urbanisation, environmental change and collective forms of care are reshaping cities across the Global South. Rather than presenting architecture as a collection of finished objects, it positions the built environment as an ongoing process of participation, adaptation and exchange. Ahead of the opening, curator Vyjayanthi Rao speaks to ART AFRICA about expanding architectural discourse, challenging inherited urban narratives and imagining more inclusive civic futures.
Suzette Bell-Roberts: ‘Architecture Otherwise’ suggests a different way of thinking about the discipline. What does “otherwise” mean to you, and why is this shift necessary now?
Vyjayanthi Rao: Architecture is often understood through the material life of buildings or the formal language of the built environment. My perspective has been shaped somewhat differently. Rather than beginning with the building as an object, I’m interested in what architecture does – the social, spatial, and ecological relationships it produces and the many forms through which those relationships are made. Landscapes, sound and movement are all transformative media which architects are training themselves to design in as well. Retranslated into English, the title in Arabic suggests something like ‘Architecture in a Different Form’, which captures the spirit of the exhibition more directly. Conceptually, the idea of the “otherwise” simultaneously references the everyday world around us, as well as the possibility that this world might be otherwise or different from its perceptible reality.
Your curatorial framework centres civic infrastructure rather than buildings. How do you define civic infrastructure, and why is it such an urgent focus today?
There is a lot of conversation across different disciplines, including the social sciences and architecture, around the concept of the “public,” which is often attached to spaces that are supposed to be open and shared. However, public spaces are also governed spaces, especially at certain moments in time. On the other hand, the spaces we conceive of as civic infrastructure are collective and connective, where social connections and etiquette develop more organically, are open to movement, and are not necessarily claimed by one group or another. One thinks of a library, for example, which is a space that you may inhabit with strangers but is also one created through mutual interest, etiquette and a care about learning that translates into a care for others, however tacit that may be. This is one of the senses in which we use the term civic infrastructure. Ironically, in the current moment it is increasingly difficult to craft ways to capture that spirit of care despite, or perhaps because of, a surfeit of information and opinion about others. Losing that sense of mutual purpose and intentional interaction with others who may be different is a problem that cannot be solved through technology alone.
As an anthropologist, you approach architecture through lived experience rather than solely through form. How has anthropology shaped the way you have conceived this Triennial?
Absolutely. As I mention in my other responses, the idea that lived experience and spatial practices are inseparable expands how we perceive architecture. In today’s urban landscapes, we may see very similar kinds of buildings – the same materials are used, regardless of climatic conditions or social arrangements – but people are constantly rearranging and negotiating even these very formal architectural objects, designed by professionals, built by contractors and imagined for idealised users such as nuclear families and so on. In the exhibition, we emphasize the moments in which otherness becomes perceptible and tangible in the arrangements that people make for themselves using their imaginations and tapping into their aspirations. An anthropological lens is also about noticing how people create worlds for themselves and other beings, connecting with and designing with materials and affordances available to them. So architecture is taken out of the narrow box of the office, the studio and the contractor-driven supply chain and presented as a co-creative process, a dialogue with other times and places within which people create homes for themselves, however ephemeral.
The Triennial focuses on cities shaped by migration and rapid urbanisation. What new forms of knowledge or civic life emerge when we stop viewing these conditions as crises?
Migration – both voluntary and forced – has already created new ways of life for millions on our planet. The Triennial is an occasion – a limited experimental space that we hope will be a meeting point where new connections might emerge. To your point, we need to ask what might emerge when we pause to actually look at all the possibilities that architects and communities have already created and how these might be carried forward meaningfully.
Sharjah has become an important meeting point for conversations across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. How has the city itself informed your curatorial thinking?
Anthropologists typically invest much of their lives working with and learning from a small number of groups. For me, Sharjah itself was a fascinating place, a crossroads where so many cultures have been coalescing over centuries, and SAT gave us the opportunity to invite a few participants to work more closely with communities on the ground in Sharjah in the months leading up to the exhibition. Our hope is that the networks this process has created will inform the experience of the exhibition for visitors who may not typically come in to interact with architectural drawings, models and media, along with those who are seeking out the exhibition to learn more about the threads that connect all of us, regardless of where we live.
Rather than celebrating iconic buildings, SAT03 foregrounds research, collaboration and process. What does this reveal about the changing role of architecture today?
I have been fortunate to work with an institution such as SAT, which is laying down roots with communities in the city, producing research to inform planning and policy and acting as a liaison between city governance and residents. These institutions also play a vital role in informing pedagogy and allowing younger architects to look beyond the traditional role that the architecture office and studio has played in urban development. SAT03 draws inspiration from the institution in some ways to amplify the message of what alternative practice – Architecture Otherwise – might look like.
Looking beyond the Triennial, what impact do you hope SAT03 will have on architectural practice, education and public life across the Global South?
As an anthropologist who has taught in schools of architecture for almost a decade now, I hope the exhibition can contribute to an ongoing shift in architectural pedagogy that increasingly draws on insights from across disciplines to reconsider architecture’s relationship to the social, political, and ecological conditions of the present. In that sense, it offers an opportunity to reflect on the creativity of citizens and migrants, architects and residents in their everyday endeavours of reproducing civic designs that are relevant to the places and times in which they find themselves. Beyond representing existing conditions, the exhibition also attempts to create a space for engaging with the myriad forms through which we design our worlds. I hope that these interactions may become an archive through which we can trace and foresee transitions within a world that is in constant motion.
The Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures’, is on view in Sharjah from 14 November 2026 until 14 April 2027.
