The new series opens with an online conversation exploring architecture’s role in times of conflict, crisis, and uncertainty.
Sharjah Architecture Triennial has announced its final public programme ahead of its third edition, Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures, set to open in November 2026. Curated by Vyjayanthi Rao, the new series of conversations brings together architects, artists, and critical thinkers to explore how architecture continues to respond to a world shaped by uncertainty, crisis, and constant transformation.
Developed in the shadow of global conflict, the programme, Staying with the Trouble: Conversations around Architecture Otherwise, turns its focus towards urban environments where architecture has long been shaped by instability, destruction, and resilience. Rather than proposing fixed solutions, the series asks how the built environment can support coexistence, care, and new forms of collective futures across diverse geographies.
The first online conversation, taking place on Saturday 16 May at 5pm GST, opens under the theme Anticipation, examining architecture through the lens of Lebanon, a country where decades of conflict have continuously reshaped the meaning of rebuilding and the idea of the “post-war.” The discussion brings together Hiba Bou Akar, Associate Professor in the Urban Planning program at Columbia GSAPP, and Mohamad Nahleh, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Ohio State University. Both trained in Lebanon and now based in the United States, they draw on both research and lived experience to reflect on what it means to practice architecture within prolonged uncertainty.
Staying with the Trouble builds on two earlier public programmes leading up to SAT03, including a three-day Mumbai Offsite held in November 2025 in collaboration with School of Environment and Architecture, which brought together architects, activists, artists, and social thinkers to reconsider architecture as a social, ecological, and epistemological practice. This was followed in January 2026 by Another City is Possible: Mediating Architecture, an in-conversation exploring how cities are shaped not only by buildings and infrastructure, but by social relationships, cultural narratives, and collective imagination.
