Architecture is never silent. It speaks through the hush of shaded courtyards, the rhythm of columns and the invitation of light. It does more than shape our surroundings – it shapes how we feel, how we think and how our bodies respond. Step into a hall with towering columns and the response is almost instinctive: a sense of awe, heightened awareness and a quiet lift in spirit.
Research in the field of neuroaesthetics shows why this happens. Vertical spaces activate regions of the brain linked to reverence and inspiration, while also releasing dopamine that fuels curiosity and motivation. At the same time, textures underfoot and the warmth of natural materials influence us in subtler ways. A study published by Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 20 years ago found that contact with softer, natural surfaces calms the nervous system, reduces stress and creates ease.
Together these signals create harmony. The verticality uplifts the mind, while the tactile environment steadies and reassures the body. The result is an experience that feels both majestic and welcoming.
At the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, architecture becomes a conversation with the human body, mind and emotions instead of remaining a silent backdrop. It has become our language of purpose. Every detail carries meaning. Every space is designed not only to be seen, but to be felt.
The journey begins with a tree. For generations, the date palm has been a symbol of Emirati life, providing shelter, sustenance and strength. In Osaka, this tree is reimagined as 90 soaring columns, each crafted from the spine of its fronds. They rise up to 16 metres, creating a shaded canopy that greets visitors with a quiet sense of awe. The canopy embodies hospitality in built form, turning architecture into welcome. To walk beneath it is to be welcomed into the spirit of the UAE. Each column is unique, just like every individual who passes among them.
Step inside, and the Pavilion unfolds as an emotional as well as a physical journey. Roots of a Nation draws visitors into the values that shaped the UAE: unity, resilience, and ambition. Explorers of Space captures the curiosity that once looked to the desert sky and now reaches into the cosmos. Catalysts of Healthcare reveals how compassion, paired with innovation, transforms lives. Stewards of Sustainability affirms a responsibility to protect what is fragile and precious. Woven Legacies gathers these threads, showing that the story of one nation is inseparable from the story of all humanity. These are not galleries of facts. They are encounters with values. Visitors leave with an impression not of exhibits, but of a way of seeing the world.
A study published by Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 20 years ago found that contact with softer, natural surfaces calms the nervous system, reduces stress and creates ease
The Pavilion is also a bridge, a dialogue between Emirati heritage and Japanese craft. Traditional areesh, once woven from palm fronds to create homes and gathering spaces, has been reinterpreted through Japanese woodworking. Emirati Al Sadu weaving converses with Japanese cedar. Red pine and oak frame a landscape that feels familiar yet new. These are not design flourishes. They are acts of collaboration. In a world that often seems divided, this Pavilion is proof of what can happen when cultures choose to create together.
Material choices, too, hold their own poetry. Datecrete, made from crushed date seeds, and Dateform, crafted from palm frond waste, are more than mere technical innovations. They serve as reminders that even what is discarded can be reborn as beauty. Progress, the Pavilion suggests, is not about endless consumption but about reimagining resources with care. To touch these materials is to understand that architecture can embody both responsibility and artistry.
And yet, what persists most is not the details of construction but the emotion of experience. The awe of columns reaching skyward. The calm of shaded courtyards. The gentle scent of palms carried through the air. These sensations arrive before a word is spoken. They root themselves in memory. They demonstrate that architecture does not merely tell stories but allows people to feel them.
Just as the columns give structure to the Pavilion, our Youth Ambassadors give it life. They are rooted in the UAE’s story and embody its values with every interaction. To many visitors, they are the first face of the Pavilion and often the most memorable part of the journey. Their warmth and authenticity turn architecture into encounter, transforming space into relationship. Over time, they form bonds with families who return again and again, carrying those friendships beyond the Pavilion’s walls. In their presence, the Pavilion is not only a building to admire, but a story to connect with, lived, spoken and shared.
This Pavilion is part of a longer conversation. When Abu Dhabi participated at Expo Osaka in 1970, the UAE was a young nation with a bold vision. When Dubai hosted Expo 2020, it welcomed the world and set new benchmarks for what a national pavilion could be. The UAE’s presence in Osaka today carries that legacy forward with clarity of purpose rather than reliance on spectacle. Every column, every beam and every woven thread sends a message: heritage and imagination can coexist, and the strongest futures are built with both.
The world does not need more buildings. What it needs are places that carry meaning, structures that inspire connection and spaces that spark responsibility. Architecture must respond to that call. The UAE Pavilion illustrates one way forward. It transforms palm fronds into soaring forms, waste into wonder, collaboration into art. At its best, architecture is defined less by the walls it builds than by the futures it makes possible.
To step into the UAE Pavilion is to feel the pulse of a nation. It is to sense the depth of roots and the height of imagination. It is to experience architecture not as silence, but as purpose spoken aloud.
The specs: Audi e-tron
Price, base: From Dh325,000 (estimate)
Engine: Twin electric motors and 95kWh battery pack
Transmission: Single-speed auto
Power: 408hp
Torque: 664Nm
Range: 400 kilometres
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories From the North
Edited and Introduced by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson
Pushkin Press
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
It
Director: Andres Muschietti
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor
Three stars
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE SPECS
Engine: Four-cylinder 2.5-litre
Transmission: Seven-speed auto
Power: 165hp
Torque: 241Nm
Price: Dh99,900 to Dh134,000
On sale: now
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Saturday
Fiorentina v Torino (8pm)
Hellas Verona v Roma (10.45pm)
Sunday
Parma v Napoli (2.30pm)
Genoa v Crotone (5pm)
Sassuolo v Cagliari (8pm)
Juventus v Sampdoria (10.45pm)
Monday
AC Milan v Bologna (10.45om)
Playing September 30
Benevento v Inter Milan (8pm)
Udinese v Spezia (8pm)
Lazio v Atalanta (10.45pm)
The%20specs%3A%20Taycan%20Turbo%20GT
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THE%20FLASH
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The specs: 2018 GMC Terrain
Price, base / as tested: Dh94,600 / Dh159,700
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 353Nm @ 2,500rpm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.4L / 100km
Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
