Abu Dhabi University — Abu Dhabi Campus

Abu Dhabi University refurbished its campus interiors with a clear priority: that the spaces themselves should help students, faculty, and visitors feel they belong. EDI led the interior design, reworking the existing campus into a sequence of welcoming, adaptable environments that carry the university’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion into the everyday experience of being on campus.

The brief reached across the whole of campus life — the arrival hall, the student hub, the auditorium, the cafeteria, academic facilities, and the shared spaces in between. EDI paired straightforward functional planning with a confident but restrained design language: clean lines, bold geometric forms, layered textures, and measured accents of colour that give the campus a clear identity without shouting. The aim throughout was a simple one — to make interaction easy and gathering feel natural.

Much of the work went into the spaces around formal teaching: collaborative, social, and informal settings that support solo study, group work, and the unplanned conversations that knit a university together. Completed in 2021, the refurbishment lets learning spill well beyond the seminar room, giving a large campus a more open and shared character suited to a wide range of people and ways of working.