A villa in Dubai‘s seafront Jumeirah 1 district is about to change its purpose. South African architect Sumayya Vally is reworking it into a permanent home for the Elie Khouri Art Foundation (EKAF), a dubai art foundation that is starting from the house’s domestic past.
Vally is the principal of Counterspace, an architecture and research studio. The practice is based in Johannesburg and London, and its work is documented at counterspace-studio.com. The foundation will open in late 2028.
A house that already holds a life
Vally treats the building as a previous life to build on, not a blank site. “I think of buildings as having many lives,” she says. “At EKAF, we begin with a house that has already held a world within it.”
She points to the physical traces of that earlier use. Doors, cornices, balustrades, and the way the house received guests and divided its rooms all carry the memory of another household.
Turning a long-lived house into something new is a familiar challenge, and a Victorian cottage given a modern makeover with blue accents and marble shows how original period details can survive a renovation.
Her central idea is to scale those intimate details up. “I am interested in what happens when we take these intimate geometries and give them a new public scale,” she says. In her description, a room’s architecture becomes the architecture of a facade that faces the city, and the memory of a house becomes the start of an institution.
What the design shows so far
Few details of the dubai art foundation’s scheme have been released. A render published by Dezeen shows what appears to be a three-storey building with a textured, light pink facade. Lines across the surface seem to echo the old building’s layout, and recognisable shapes, including doorways, are visible.
The facade is punctured by geometric openings. Through them, passers-by will see activity inside.
The villa renovation will turn the existing villa and its grounds into a set of galleries, educational spaces, pavilions and a garden. The plan also adds hospitality and outdoor areas. Vally has drawn on two sources of inspiration: the interlocking streets of Beirut and the courtyards of Gulf houses. In both, the boundary between inside and outside is porous.
The studio is not trying to produce a conventional museum building. The aim is a site-responsive place that invites people in to see art.
Dubai’s cultural scene also draws on local building traditions, as seen in an Al Maktoum workspace that weaves in traditional Emirati craftsmanship for a closer look at the city’s material heritage.
Why the dubai art foundation chose Vally
Vally’s résumé includes the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion in London, for which she was the youngest architect commissioned. She directed the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, which was held in 2023. She also serves as Architect-in-Residence at Ibraaz in London. Dezeen named her emerging architect of the year at its 2023 awards.
Khouri was drawn to the way her practice sits between architecture and artistic research. The foundation values that same overlap.
A collection, a director and a cultural legacy
EKAF was founded in 2020 by Elie Khouri, a Lebanese–French media executive and collector. It has never had a permanent base until now. Khouri’s collection began with a single painting, “So Happy to See You,” a 2002 work by the Lebanese American artist Nabil Nahas. It has grown to include works by more than 300 artists from Latin America, Africa and Europe.
The first exhibitions at the dubai art foundation will draw on that collection, which Khouri has built over more than 20 years. The programme will also include loans from private and institutional collections, collaborations with museums, and shows developed by invited curators. Artists from the UAE and the wider region will appear alongside international names. The foundation says it will put artistic ideas ahead of fixed geographical quotas.
In January 2026, the foundation appointed Caroline Louca as director. Louca was formerly managing director of Christie’s Middle East. Earlier, she worked on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the Zayed National Museum. She says Dubai’s art scene has grown considerably over the past two decades. “A central part of our approach is making the ideas and contexts behind contemporary art more accessible, without compromising curatorial rigour,” she says.
Khouri frames the project as a gift to the city. “Art belongs in everyday life, not apart from it,” he says. “My foundation will be a home for contemporary art, open to everyone.”
Vally’s answer to that goal for the dubai art foundation is a building that keeps its domestic memory on view. The villa’s former life will not be erased. It will shape how the public enters, looks and gathers.
Via dezeen.com
Frequently asked questions
Who is designing the Elie Khouri Art Foundation’s new Dubai building?
South African architect Sumayya Vally, principal of the Johannesburg and London studio Counterspace, is reworking a villa in Dubai’s Jumeirah 1 district into a permanent home for the Elie Khouri Art Foundation. Her approach starts from the house’s domestic past rather than treating it as a blank site.
When will the Elie Khouri Art Foundation open in Dubai?
The Elie Khouri Art Foundation is set to open in late 2028 in its new permanent home, a renovated villa in Dubai’s Jumeirah 1 district.
How did the Elie Khouri Art Foundation’s collection begin?
The collection began with a single painting, “So Happy to See You,” a 2002 work by the Lebanese American artist Nabil Nahas. It has since grown to include works by more than 300 artists from Latin America, Africa and Europe.
Who is the director of the Elie Khouri Art Foundation?
Caroline Louca was appointed director of the foundation in January 2026. She was formerly managing director of Christie’s Middle East and previously worked on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the Zayed National Museum.
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