Saudi Arabia's architecture and design scene has been changing fast — but it is not just about megaprojects and Vision 2030 announcements. It is about women! They have become some of the most interesting voices in the room. They are asking questions the industry wasn't asking before: what gets preserved when a city reinvents itself? What does it actually mean to design from your own culture, rather than importing someone else's idea of what modern looks like? Here are a few names worth knowing.

Sara and Nojoud co-founded Syn Architects in Riyadh in 2019. Two years later, they launched the Um Slaim Collective — a research initiative investigating the displacement of traditional Najdi architecture in central Riyadh: the mud-brick neighbourhoods, the courtyards, the spatial logic of a city before it was in a hurry. In 2025, that work grew into the Um Slaim School, which represented Saudi Arabia at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

One project that shows exactly how they think is the Shamalat Cultural Centre in Riyadh. It started as an old mud house — the kind of building that usually just gets demolished. Instead, Sara and Nojoud restored it and added a contemporary extension built from Riyadh stone, so the new part and the old part are clearly in conversation without pretending to be the same thing. The result is a gallery, residency space and workshop, founded by Saudi artist Maha Malluh.

Shahad Alazzaz founded Azaz Architects in 2017 with a philosophy that is simple enough to sound almost obvious: beauty should be the problem-solving principle in architecture. The studio's portfolio moves comfortably between residential, commercial, public art and furniture — across Diriyah, Paris, Istanbul, Ankara, Madrid.

One of her best-known projects is the Sa'af installation at Dubai Design Week — a massive suspended structure inspired by traditional Saudi palm-frond weaving. To get it right, the team travelled to Al Ahsa province and worked directly with the craftswomen who still know how to do it. The result was something that felt both ancient and completely contemporary. She also designs rugs for The Invisible Collection and serves as RIBA's representative in Riyadh — which is its own kind of bridge-building.

Sumaya Dabbagh grew up in Jeddah, studied architecture in Bath, spent time in London and Paris, and by the time she founded Dabbagh Architects in Dubai in 2008, she had already spent years asking one question that would shape everything she built: how do you make a building that actually belongs somewhere?

In 2021, she became one of the first women in the UAE to design a mosque — the Gargash Mosque in Dubai. She is also working with Saudi Arabia's Royal Commission on the revitalisation of AlUla's old town.

Most recently, Dabbagh Architects completed the Al Ain Museum in Abu Dhabi — weaving a new contemporary building around a 1971 museum, a 1910 fort, and over 8,000 years of regional history. ArchDaily published the project in 2025 and called it architecture that "captures the spirit of place."

Salwa Samargandi founded SAL Architects in Jeddah in 2017. One of her most visible projects is the restoration of the Ammar bin Yasser Mosque in AlUla — one of the oldest mosques in the area, and what Wallpaper* described as a "sensitive restoration" when SAL's work was featured at the opening exhibition of Design Space AlUla in 2024.

The approach was participatory from the start: the team interviewed locals and imams to understand the mosque's history before touching a single wall. They moved the wet zone to the back, opened up the north facade, added a wooden canopy that turned the entrance into a place where people could actually sit and look at the Incense Road.