As part of the AlUla Arts Festival, the fourth edition of the AlUla Design Award ceremony brought together designers, cultural leaders, and the wider creative community to celebrate contemporary design shaped by material intelligence, craftsmanship, and deep engagement with AlUla. The ceremony marked a pivotal moment in ”Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within”, an exhibition and public programme that frames design as a form of cultural testimony rather than surface expression.

Presented within the AlJadidah Arts District, AlUla Design Award is a core pillar of AlUla’s design ecosystem, developed by Arts AlUla. Now in its fourth edition, the Award invites designers from around the world, in celebration of the Year of Handicrafts, to respond to AlUla through the theme The Ingenuity of the Human Hand. foregrounding craft, process, and material-led thinking as drivers of contemporary creation.

This edition’s open call attracted applications representing 31 nationalities, highlighting the growing international reach of AlUla Design Award and reinforcing AlUla’s position as an emerging centre of interest for the global design community.

Product Design Award: Abdulrahman Al Muftah (Qatar)

This year’s Product Design Award was presented to Abdulrahman Al Muftah for his project untitled  ”Bird Whistle”, a series of finely handcrafted terracotta whistles designed to replicate the calls of native AlUla bird species.

Each piece is individually shaped and acoustically tuned to mirror these natural calls , inviting moments of pause and attentive listening. In doing so, the work shifts the gaze of AlUla’s monumental heritage to its living biodiversity through a functional object rooted in craft.

Fashion Design Award: Matthieu Gautier aka. MUTAGENE (France)

The Fashion Award was presented to Matthieu Gautier for ”Monumental Miniature”, a wearable object inspired by the carved sandstone tombs of Hegra.

Translating monumental architecture into an intimate scale, the piece balances digital precision and hand-finishing while exploring the relationship between landscape, body, and adornment.

A Ceremony Embedded in a Living Design Ecosystem

The ceremony took place within the broader ”Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within” exhibition, a space where AlUla Design Award, the ⁠AlUla Artist Residency – Design Edition, AlUla Designathon, and Madrasat Addeera come together as interconnected initiatives. Rather than presenting design as a finished outcome, the program emphasizes research, experimentation, and making as modes of thinking and cultural transmission.

Throughout the exhibition and public talks, designers engage with materials central to AlUla’s environment such as clay, palm, stone, metal, textile, and pigment, treating them not as symbols but as active agents shaped by climate, labor, and time. Design emerges as a practice accountable to place, rooted in local knowledge while remaining open to global dialogue.

An International Jury Rooted in Design, Craft, and Cultural Expertise

The 2025 edition of AlUla Design Award was evaluated by an international jury bringing together expertise across design, art, curation, publishing, and cultural production. The jury reflects the Award’s commitment to material intelligence, cultural relevance, and contemporary design excellence.

The jury included:

• Guillaume Houzé, Chairman of Galeries Lafayette Group and President of Lafayette Anticipations
• Yoko Choy, design journalist and consultant, Editor of Wallpaper China
• Ahmad Angawi, Saudi designer, artist, and educator, founder of Angawi Studio
• Hind AlRawaf, Arts and Culture Production and Trading Manager for Arts AlUla
• Arnaud Morand, Head of Arts and Creative Industries at the French Agency for AlUla Development

Together, the jury assessed projects through criteria of craftsmanship, material integrity, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to articulate meaningful connections between design, heritage, and contemporary practice.

Design As Cultural Continuity

AlUla Design Award ceremony reflects AlUla’s long-term commitment to positioning design as a living practice that connects heritage with contemporary expression. By supporting designers who work from within context rather than imposing form from the outside, the Award reinforces AlUla’s vision of design as a tool for continuity, relevance, and future-making.

“AlUla Design Award is a strategic platform within our long-term vision for AlUla as a global destination for culture, design, and creative exchange,” said Hamad AlHomeidan, Director for Arts AlUla. “Through the Award, we invite designers from around the world to engage meaningfully with AlUla’s heritage, materials, and living landscape. By supporting research-driven, material-led practices, the Design Award contributes to shaping a creative ecosystem where design plays an active role in cultural continuity, tourism development, and the future identity of AlUla.”

The winning projects, alongside the ten exhibited finalists, are presented as part of Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within at Design Space AlUla, offering visitors an opportunity to experience design through material presence, sensory engagement, and the gestures of the human hand. As part of the award, the winning projects will be produced and made available for sale across AlUla’s retail locations.