Iraqi Architect Ola Znad Brings Marsh Arab Reed Craft to Doha

Iraqi-born architect Ola Znad has spent three years studying the reed architecture of the Ahwari people — without ever setting foot in their wetlands. Her work now anchors two projects at Design Doha 2026 (5 November – 31 January 2027), where she reinterprets centuries-old Marsh Arab building techniques as furniture and a social space for under-served women.

Both projects appear within the Fahad Bin Ali Palace exhibition 'Beyti Beytak: My Home is Your Home' (until 29 May 2027). The furniture collection, 'Shabbah', grew out of Design Doha's 'Arab Design Now' exhibition and the ceremonies and feasts held inside mudhifs — the communal gathering spaces of southern Iraq's marshes.

'Environmental changes, upstream dams and the drying of the marshes threaten not only the livelihoods of the Marsh Arab communities, but also the knowledge and craft traditions that have evolved alongside this landscape,' Znad says. 'My work explores how we can bring attention to this heritage while supporting its continuity.'

From Baghdad to Bahrain to the marshes

Znad was born in Baghdad and moved to Bahrain with her family in 2003, after the outbreak of the Iraq war, when she was eight. She still lives there. Her focus on the Ahwari is a way to connect with her birth country and to spotlight a fragile environment and cultural heritage.

The research began while she was studying for her master's in architecture at University College Dublin, with help from a Unesco worker. 'While researching the Marsh Arabs' architecture, the only books I could find were written by anthropologists from the West – there was nothing by an Iraqi person, which provoked me to dig deeper,' she says.

Unable to return to Iraq for personal reasons, she has never visited the wetland islands. Instead, she speaks to the community regularly via WhatsApp to understand their building techniques and how they use the architecture. 'It is not just about structural form, but also about the collective knowledge, labour and care that bring it into being,' she says.

What does the furniture look like?

'Shabbah' is made with reeds harvested by the community. The collection includes:

• A long table topped with a reed mat woven by the community, echoing the mudhif's façade
• Stools and a bench made from curved reed bundles
• A concave armchair formed from ropes of crushed reeds, the same ropes used to tie bundles on the islands

'Rooted in the spirit of hospitality, gathering and quiet resilience, each piece invites pause and presence,' Znad says of the collection.

She sees the pieces as prototypes for a limited-edition collection suited to outdoor public spaces and interiors. 'All too often, seating in public spaces is made from concrete, which overheats,' she explains. 'Reed remains comfortably cool.' Reeds, she adds, are durable, flexible, water resistant and unaffected by heat and humidity — ideal for Middle Eastern climates, and forgiving of design experimentation because they bend without breaking.

Znad pays the community for the materials and craft skills they contribute, creating a new source of income. 'It's important that this research goes beyond documenting a tradition; it also creates opportunities for the people who continue to carry that knowledge,' she says.

A mudhif stretched for women

Her conversations with the Marsh Arabs revealed a gap: mudhifs are chiefly meeting places for men, and women lack dedicated spaces for daily activities and social life. 'I realised they were thirsty for a place to gather,' Znad says.

Her answer, 'Souk Al Liqa', draws on the mudhif's architecture but stretches it into a circular, doughnut-like form with an open centre. 'It is designed as a marketplace for women, somewhere they can make and sell their crafts, cook and socialise,' she says. 'It also honours the huge role women play in the construction [of villages], which hasn't been highlighted before.'

Women weave the reed façades of the mudhif. Photographs of their hands at work, with their names, will be displayed inside the installation, accompanied by an audio installation evoking the sounds of daily life in the marshlands.

The projects follow Znad's 2024 mudhif recreation amid the glass towers of Dubai Design District, built with Ahwari artisans for the city's design week. That first installation was about reverence and trust: 'They have ownership over this typology, so it was important to respect that,' she says. 'But as the research has grown, our conversations have widened and we've begun exploring different iterations and forms together. It's been an organic process.'

Together, the two Doha projects point to a future where design and wetland restoration work hand in hand. '[The furniture collection] is about showing how we can create contemporary pieces that honour our heritage, while giving artisans and Indigenous peoples access to the market,' Znad says.