Recognized develops and tests innovative construction methodologies for unrecognized Bedouin villages in southern Palestine. The project begins with a year-long material laboratory, established in collaboration with Palestinian farmer Haytham Canaan, where natural resources—especially palm fronds—are explored as affordable and sustainable building materials. From this process emerges a full-scale 1:1 prototype structure, built during a residency at Darat al-Funun in Amman with a team of Bedouin architecture students. The project transforms from a conceptual expo into a realized building experiment, creating both an exhibition and a living demonstration of how local materials and community knowledge can generate resilient architectural solutions. By combining research, experimentation, and collective making, Recognized redefines the role of the architect under the political conditions of Palestine and opens a new dialogue about recognition, ecological responsibility, and the future of building in marginalized communities.

Lobna Sana is a Bedouin architect and artist from southern Palestine whose practice addresses social questions through architecture, film, sculpture, mapping, curation, and activism. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where she received the Azrieli Prize in Architecture (2022). She is the cofounder of Sada, a Jerusalem-based art movement that uses art and architecture to confront the challenges of life under occupation, where she also curated exhibitions. Sana collaborated on the VR film Remember This Place, screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2023, and is currently working on The Black Goat, a documentary reflecting spatial transformations in the Naqab. Today she leads mapping and architectural initiatives at the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Bedouin Villages (RCUV). In 2025, she begins her MFA at the Royal College of Art in London and advances her publication Building Letters to the Human.