The World Around video on waiwai's wetland research now on display

The World Around’s video on the research of Dubai-based design studio waiwai is among 75 works on show in Water Pressure: Designing for the Future, an exhibition of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G) and Jane Withers Studio. 

Presented by waiwai founding principal Wael Al Awar, Concrete is highly polluting: What if we use salt? draws attention to one of many proposals for addressing water scarcity, flooding, and pollution on display in the exhibition, which holds the global scale of the water crisis in view.

The video—first shown at The World Around Summit 2021—follows Al Awar through the salt flats of Al Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, to waiwai’s Dubai studio, touring the sites of the practice’s experimental research into low-carbon alternatives to Portland cement.

In the UAE, one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, vast desalination plants provide most of the nation’s potable water, discharging industrial volumes of highly saturated salt water into the Persian Gulf with significant effects on coastal ecosystems. Waiwai's research aims to recycle the waste brine as “an architectural material” with the same applications as carbon-intensive cement, a material whose production is responsible for 7% of global CO2 emissions. “Concrete is formed of minerals, so it’s the same line of thinking,” Al Awar explains in the video. “We have this highly rich mineral solution, could this rich mineral solution become an architecture?”

In partnership with NYU AbuDhabi’s Amber Lab, waiwai moved its experiments out of the studio and into the laboratory, using advanced equipment to extract the magnesium oxide (MgO) found in the brine as a substitute for CaO or quicklime: an essential component of the compounds that afford concrete its strength and durability. The team together developed an MgO cement mixture, which can be cast into insoluble construction blocks, along with MgO plasters for floor and wall finishes.

Building on their research on the sabkhas, Wetland, waiwai’s curation for the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates, received the Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2021.

Concrete is highly polluting: What if we use salt? was made with The World Around collaborators at 4Hawk Productions, Satomi Blair and CG Foisy.

Water Pressure: Designing for the Future runs at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G) in Hamburg from March 15 to October 13, 2024.

WETLAND, the extended version of Concrete is highly polluting: What if we use salt? was screened at The World Around Summit 2021. Watch the full video below: