Amman Design Week attended the World Design Week Conference, the first attempt of its kind to create a global network of design events and cross-country collaboration in design.

Furthermore, in an event organized by Studio-X Amman at Atelier Clerici, Amman Design Week joined a panel on regional design events entitled ‘Days, Weeks, Biennials: Design in Unsettled Times’. Co-Director of Amman Design Week, Rana Beiruti, presented a talk titled ‘Building a Locally-Centric Design Platform’ which discussed the process of developing a curatorial and strategic approach for building a locally-centric platform that empowers designers through opportunities in learning, exchange, and collaboration. The talk emphasized the meaning and importance of locality, which includes a focus on local design and designers, the use of local materials, and an emphasis on design that creates civic engagement, creative place-making, and solves local problems. Beiruti also emphasized that in building a locally-centric design platform, Amman Design Week becomes a tool for engaging in a global conversation.

Other speakers included Mohamad Al Shahed, curator of the Cairo Now! exhibition shown at Dubai Design Week 2016, Deniz Ova, the Director of the Istanbul Design Biennial who proposed how design events can provide a critical perspective, and Danah Abdulla, who presented her views on the problematic aspects of design events. The panel also included a talk by Karim Kattan, Founder and Director of el-Atlal, an arts residency in Jericho. Palestine, and was preceded by a Keynote Lecture by Elias and Yousef Anastas on their recent projects; Mass Imperfections, displayed at Dubai Design Week 2016, Stone Sourcing, and Stone Matters.

A second afternoon panel focused on abandonment and ruin in architecture, and included speakers such as René Boer from Failed Architecture, Jawad Dukhgan from Studio-X Amman, Antonio Otamanelli, Ignacio Evangelista from After Schengen, Allison Hugill and Dan Dorocic from Antiforum, and Eduardo Rega from the University of Pennsylvania.