Inca Hernández Revives Craft & Community in Abu Dhabi's Liwa Oasis

Having honed his craft alongside masters like Tadao Ando and Álvaro Siza, emerging architect Inca Hernández has developed a practice that fuses cultural memory with contemporary design. His latest work, Liwa Farm Village in Abu Dhabi’s historic oasis, embodies that vision. Rooted in the desert’s identity, the project draws from ancestral structures while integrating sustainable strategies for today. Emerging on a vast land of palm groves in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region, it rises as a new landmark for heritage, agriculture, and community on one of the UAE’s most historic oases.

Bordering the Rub' al Khali, the world’s largest sand desert, Liwa has long been a place of resilience. Its fortresses, aflaj irrigation systems, and ancestral settlements tell the story of survival and ingenuity. “Liwa Farm Village is not just architecture, it’s rooted in agriculture, animal care, and the traditions of the oasis. Protecting that heritage was central to every design decision,” Hernández explains. Drawing from this legacy, the masterplan reimagines the oasis as a living, working village. Within the date plantation, a network of cultural and communal buildings unfolds: a Majlis for gatherings, a farm-to-table restaurant, a veterinary centre, a community farm, a spa, and a cluster of vernacular guest bungalows.
At the heart of the design lies a return to craft. Rammed-earth walls, carved and pigmented concrete, and clay latticework form the village’s structures, offering natural thermal comfort while minimising environmental impact. Elevated platforms protect against shifting sands, while palm trunks and woven fibres carry forward ancient roofing techniques. “For me, rammed-earth and other vernacular strategies are not about looking backward, they are ways of innovating through tradition, preserving the past while imagining a sustainable future.” Hernández tells SceneHome.
Architecture here is conceived as part of the landscape. Courtyards, windcatcher-inspired chimneys, and reflecting pools recall the aflaj and qanat systems, grounding the complex in Liwa’s water culture. The Majlis, built with palm-tree structures, opens a space for contemplation and exchange, while the restaurant and spa overlook fields of lavender and lemongrass, rooting the visitor’s experience in the sensory landscape of Al Gharbia. “We wanted every space—from the Majlis to the restaurant and spa—to extend the sensory life of the oasis: the silence, the shade, the fragrance of lavender and lemongrass, and above all, the feeling of community,” says Hernández.
The interiors merge local craftsmanship with contemporary design, striking a balance between authenticity and timelessness. Each space, from the exhibition halls to the bungalows, feels carved from the desert itself. “The architecture is conceived like a desert formation, shaped by wind and time,” Hernández reflects. “It’s not an object in the landscape, it becomes the landscape itself, a habitable oasis.”
Liwa Farm Village is designed with the purpose to protect the oasis’s agricultural heritage, foster social exchange, and position sustainability as an extension of tradition. In the words of its architect, it is “a living village where tradition, innovation, and sustainability converge and a place that protects heritage while allowing it to thrive for future generations.”

Images credits : Inca Hernández