html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Curated by Azza Aboualam, an Emirati architect and assistant professor at Zayed University and co-founder of Holesum Studio, Pressure Cooker marks the opening of the National Pavilion UAE at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition's main research question is: Using the UAE as a case study, how can architecture contribute to greater food security?.Traditional farming practices are increasingly under risk from temperature extremes and soil degradation as climate change upends agricultural systems. The exhibition explores how architecture may address these issues by putting up a number of experimental adaptive greenhouse assemblies for desert settings, drawing on historical and current research conducted in the United Arab Emirates. It explores how architectural thinking may assist adaptable and resilient food production techniques at both the individual and community levels, placing the UAE's agricultural landscape within a larger global framework.Pressure Cooker is a modular greenhouse assembly kit that was created using a three-pronged research approach that combined fieldwork, archival research, and design-build experiments. It is intended for hot, arid conditions. The kit deconstructs the greenhouse's architectural vocabulary into its fundamental parts, which include the roof, wall, floor, tools, and materials. These can be rearranged in a variety of ways, enabling various combinations that adapt to particular crop needs and environmental conditions. The method suggests a future where architectural design and food production are entwined and can be included into our constructed and lived spaces.Visitors will find a number of experimental greenhouse assemblies built with various combinations of the kit's parts in the display. In order to explore how architectural form can be used to negotiate inputs like sunlight, shade, external temperature, irrigation, ventilation, and thermal mass, as well as outputs like interior temperature, light levels, humidity, and energy use, each assembly represents a different combinatory situation. In addition to influencing crop yield, these inputs and outputs also help determine the best ways to set up and construct each greenhouse assembly. The exhibition features crops with historical and regional significance, like cucumbers, while other assemblies show that it is possible to grow species that are rarely associated with desert climes, like blueberries, depending on the type of assembly and the category of food it is designed to grow.The exhibition's greenhouse assemblies address UAE-specific environmental issues while also acting as a test site for potential adaptations of similar buildings to other environments, like Venice. The research and design of the exhibit, which was spearheaded by Aboualam and created in partnership with Holesum Studio and a local team in the United Arab Emirates, examines how greenhouses can be adapted for desert settings when placed in a different, moderate climate. Pressure Cooker gathers, examines, and disseminates data as part of this ongoing experiment, providing information about the environmental performance of each assembly. The project affirms the importance of architecture in creating dynamic, climate-adaptable agricultural infrastructures by combining site-specific horticulture in Venice with research originating in the United Arab Emirates.By deconstructing and reassembling the greenhouse's architectural language, Pressure Cooker challenges viewers to reevaluate the ways in which architecture, food, and innovative ideas of space can coexist. Alongside the installation, there is audio and video content that chronicles the exhibition's research stages and invites viewers to accompany the research team while providing a glimpse into the project's goals and methods."As the world undergoes an ongoing agrarian transition and faces the growing threats of climate change, the challenges to food and water security are becoming increasingly urgent, particularly in the Gulf region. While prevailing global perspectives on food security often emphasize centralized technological innovation, Pressure Cooker proposes an alternative: creating a shared responsibility for local communities," said curator Azza Aboualam. "It looks into local design solutions that remain unexplored and were conceived under conditions of food scarcity over the years, ranging from the vernacular to the technologically sophisticated." "The exhibition examines how architecture can help identify and address challenges in food production, bringing the UAE closer to its food security goals." "With its multipronged research approach, Pressure Cooker aims to contribute to the national development of ensuring sustainable food production and strengthening local agriculture, all the while aiming to create an open source of knowledge for arid environments and the world at large," Aboualam added.Through partnerships with organizations like Silal and Zayed University, the National Pavilion UAE is demonstrating its continued dedication to promoting research and educational possibilities. Students and future professionals from the United Arab Emirates will have the opportunity to observe international architectural exhibitions directly through the 2025 Venice Internship Program.Image courtesy of National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photography by Ola Allouz"The National Pavilion UAE continues to play a leading role in shaping the UAE’s cultural landscape, fostering impact and legacy through initiatives that support architectural discourse in the UAE. This is reflected in Azza Aboualam’s journey, who first engaged with the Pavilion as an intern in 2014," said Laila Binbrek, Director, National Pavilion UAE. "This year’s exhibition introduces a new critical lens yet to be pursued at this scale and within this context, proposing a technical and experimental approach to architecture that is future-thinking, multidisciplinary, and thoughtfully connected to the climate realities of our time," Binbrek added.Image courtesy of National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photography by Ola AllouzThe show is accompanied by a book called Pressure Cooker Recipes: An Architectural Cookbook, edited by Azza Aboualam and published by Kaph Books. It analyzes the relationship between architecture and food production over time by combining research, essays, and artistic contributions. The texts and visuals, which are organized into five major parts and follow a cookbook format, showcase agrarian activities in dry settings and beyond while providing fresh insights into how we relate to food production, climate-adaptive design, and urban infrastructures. Image courtesy of National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photography by Ola AllouzSarah Saad Alajmi, Rashed Almulla, Dimitri Brand, Kit Elsworth, Huma Gupta, HOME-OFFICE (Daniel Jacobs and Brittany Utting), Elisa Iturbe, Kevin Mitchell, and Faysal Tabbarah are among the contributors, listed alphabetically.Pressure Cooker is on view at the National Pavilion UAE’s permanent space at the Arsenale – Sale d’Armi in Venice from 10 May to 23 November 2025. Find out all exhibition news on WAC's Venice Architecture Biennale page. All images in the article: 2025. Pressure Cooker Curated by Azza Aboualam. Image Courtesy of National Pavilion UAE – La Biennale di Venezia. Photography © Ismail Noor of Seeing Things unless otherwise stated. > via National Pavilion UAE