BECOMING XEROPHILE

UAE
Cooking Sections

The Middle East has one of the longest recorded histories of plants and traditional information, due to the herdsmen who have inhabited the area for thousands of years. As nomadic pastoralists, Bedouin tribes have been acquainted with the names of plants, their growth season, palatability and phenological aspects for thousands of years. Additionally, classical Arab writings have given names to plant community types, defining vegetative habitat and cover together. This record is testament to the living desert and the intertwined history of humans and plant life in a region that is often depicted as barren by western stereotypes. In the United Arab Emirates, Sharjah is the third largest city, settled over 5,000 years ago. Cooking Sections worked with engineering firm AKT II to build an experimental garden that challenges the Western portrayal of desert regions as bare landscapes. They contoured nine sand bowls with unique microclimates using local soil and gravel from the deconstruction of a former school, and planted the garden with forty desert plant species. The species were not chosen for their aesthetic value, but rather for their adaptation to life in the desert with harsh sun and little rain. The sand bowls create microclimates with greater humidity and moisture seepage from the water table, and sensors are used to monitor the condition of the plants, measuring solar radiation, soil moisture and wind speed to reduce climate stress. Along with the garden, a menu serving local desert foods was created at a local restaurant featuring plants that grow with little to no irrigation, as well as salt tolerant species. The project highlighted the unique geometric formations that are alive in the desert, and will remain until the next architecture triennial in 2022, when the most successful of the nine sand bowls will be selected to be replicated in other locations.

2019 - 2022
1 acre
0 - 4500 feet above sea level

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