Mirkaz is inspired by a lost tradition – the now abandoned social custom of transporting worn out indoor couches to the outdoors to create impromptu, temporary places for conversation. This tradition belongs deeply to the region and reflects the natural tendency to create intimate social gathering spaces in public zones. These pieces of furniture would have been discarded but were instead given new life in this beautifully spontaneous phenomenon of social interaction. The couches came to inhabit liminal spaces – street corners, driveways and front gardens. They occupied the gaps between buildings and houses and they enriched the lives within those structures; entire social worlds were fuelled by the exchanges that took place "in between".

Mirkaz seeks to instigate a reclaiming of these sites, aiming to re-establish the societal structures that are now dormant within neighbourhoods. By inspiring people to spend time "in between", a new sense of familiarity can be established. A salve against cultural amnesia, Rezk believes that neighbourhoods can be reactivated by the renewed occupation of these dormant, unnoticed places. With the creation of three new furniture pieces – a table, chair and a stool, made from teak wood, metal joints, woven camel leather and terrazzo– a new act of social place-making is instigated. Designed for the outdoors, the camel leather is enduring and appropriate to the UAE desert climate; woven for durability the seat can tolerate fluctuations in climate. The metal joints are directly derived from the modularity Rezk encountered in her Sha'bi housing research. This geometric modularity is both reminiscent of the aesthetic of these rapidly disappearing housing types and gestures towards the impromptu nature of the seating arrangements that have inspired the piece. Simple and practical, the joints allow multifarious iterations of furniture types, with simple modifications in configuration and wood lengths holding the potential for a bench, a shelving unit or a stool – invoking the endless social potential that inhabited the now dormant in-between spaces.