WAQFA
Waqfa is a modular, sensory calm zone designed to be embedded in public spaces like metro stations, school corridors, and office lobbies—right where daily stress builds. It offers a five-minute reset using ambient soundscapes, soft lighting, and nature visuals, creating an accessible, stigma-free, and non-clinical space for emotional relief. Rooted in cultural relevance, the name “Waqfa” means pause in Arabic, and the experience is designed for short, daily use with no app required. It also includes an optional mood check-in and can adapt to user needs, making it both user-friendly and integrable with urban planning.
Project Type
Experience Design
Date Started
February 2025
Location
Dubai
People
Individual
Status
Prototyping
Designing for Pause: The Why Behind Waqfa
Waqfa was born out of a personal and academic inquiry into the growing mental health crisis in fast-paced urban environments. It is inspired by my graduate thesis research on biophilic design and emotional wellbeing, and a close family member’s experience with chronic stress,
Emotional stress is a constant and invisible burden in urban life —especially for students, working professionals, and commuters. Despite rising awareness of mental health, most cities offer few opportunities for emotional recovery in public spaces where stress actually builds.
What we really need is a middle layer — something that helps us reset emotionally, as part of daily life, not apart from it.
Stress follows a rhythm: fatigue in the morning, anxiety mid-day, burnout by night — but cities don’t offer space for stillness in that rhythm.
The intent is to design an ambient, non-clinical, and publicly accessible solution that helps people pause and reset within the natural rhythm of daily life. The project explores how cities might support emotional recovery — not just productivity.
The Evidence
The data is alarming. And yet, most mental health services are reactive, clinical, or hard to access — they often come in only after things have spiraled
40%
1 in 3
employees show symptoms of burnout
students in the UAE show signs of anxiety or depression
11 AM–12 PM
peak in mental fatigue among office workers
7 -9 AM
Heightened cortisol, irritability, lack of focus on arrival
From Insight to Intervention: The Design Journey
Waqfa was shaped through a layered and human-centered design process that brought together qualitative research, behavioral mapping, and iterative prototyping. I began by identifying four core personas—each representing different urban stress experiences across students, professionals, and gig workers. Using journey maps, I traced how stress accumulates across time and space. A survey of over 50 users deepened these insights, revealing common unmet needs. These findings informed early sketches and AI-generated visual renders that helped bring Waqfa’s emotional and spatial experience to life.
User Personas
Survey Results
What are the top 3 factors that contribute to stress ?
Journey Map
What time of the day are you most stressed?
In which of these places, you feel most stressed?
Imagine a calm, sensory-rich pod where you can take a 5-10 mins break in a busy area. Would you be interested?
Survey Results
Business Model Canvas
Waqfa: A Calm Zone for Urban Life
The AI-generated renders illustrate the sensory and emotional experience at the heart of Waqfa. Rather than showing a static pod, they capture how the space adapts to user needs — offering moments of calm, interaction, reflection, and recovery. These visual explorations communicate the spatial atmosphere, emotional tone, and design intent behind Waqfa as a public intervention for mental wellbeing.
The picture below show the 2 levels of Waqfa along with its elements.
Learnings
Waqfa taught me how to combine systems thinking with deep empathy to address an urgent and often invisible challenge. I learned how to move fluidly from research to prototyping — balancing emotional design with technical feasibility and considerations around urban planning. This project showed me the power of embedding care into the everyday — not as a retreat from the city, but as a form of civic infrastructure. Looking ahead, I aim to pilot Waqfa with institutional partners and continue designing emotionally intelligent spaces where wellbeing becomes a public right.