Facade to Facade began in 2017, but the inquiry at its core, which asks the simple question “Why do things look the way they do?” is deeply rooted in earlier projects and continues to define a long-term exploration. Facades are chosen as a medium positioned between the private and the public, a threshold through which the cultural identities of cities in the UAE are expressed. The artistic core of the project is a pictorial research driven by curiosity, one that does not submit to existing presumptions. From emirate to emirate, city to city, and street to street, the UAE’s built environment is scanned in search of examples that exhibit character. In its early stages, the project naturally gravitated toward landmarks or “hero” buildings, many of which were already familiar to the public.

Gradually, attention shifted toward lesser-known structures that reveal subtle snippets of character, buildings that may say little in isolation, yet collectively inform the identity of a street, locality, or city. Moving fluidly between architectural research and visual arts, the project cannot be fully contained within either discipline; rather, it meaningfully intersects both. This intersection generates a multidisciplinary dialogue among professionals across various fields, while remaining accessible to residents from diverse backgrounds. The vantage point and visual language make the work highly approachable, yet the breadth of its inquiry positions it as fertile ground for research.