The 2016 Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award was presented by New York University Abu Dhabi in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF), under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Shamsa bint Hamdan Al Nahyan. It has been established to nurture artistic talent in the United Arab Emirates. In this context, it was an honor to mentor my students Ghanem Younes, Khalid Al-Tamimi, and Mohammad Abualhuda to the successful First Place project entry and subsequent 1:1 construction of the project pavilion. The project was constructed in our digital fabrication facility and trucked from Sharjah to Abu Dhabi in 3 distinct pieces that were then assembled on-site.
The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award is given for the proposal and creation of an artwork that, in the spirit of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work, can be publicly exhibited and enjoyed in multiple public venues. The project team from the American University Sharjah constructed a proposal based upon concepts of architectural forms found along the Silk Road.
The project team traveled to Italy to accompany the artist Christo during the opening of the Floating Piers project at Lake Iseo. They were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the project's construction and viewed the engineering drawings with the artist.

The project team, pictured here with the artist Christo.

Khalid Al-Tamimi, Marcus Farr, the artist Christo, Farah Alkhoury (not on project), and Mohammad Abualhuda. (Missing Ghanem Younes)

The final project was constructed based on morphological profiles of architectural forms found along the Silk Road.

