DUBAI: Architects from the UAE’s Ibda Design firm Wael Al-Awar and Kenichi Teramoto have been appointed as the curators for the country’s national pavilion at the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. The pair’s exhibition will explore sea salt as a traditional, locally-sourced building material, and its potential uses for developing sustainable habitation in desert environments like the UAE. The curators were selected following the National Pavilion UAE’s first open call, which invited designers, architects and thinkers based in the UAE and around the world to develop proposals for the 2020 exhibition. Al-Awar founded Ibda Design in 2009 and Teramoto joined as a principal architect and partner in 2012. Ibda Design is a multidisciplinary architecture, landscape and urban design studio founded in Dubai. The firm is known for addressing the social, environmental economical and technological aspects of architectural projects.