Dubai · Curiosity architect
Lisa Harpalani
I study how places, people and technology shape the way we think, connect and grow. Then I design for it.
- Designer
- Researcher
- Facilitator
- Futures thinker
- Educator
Where I look
Place, people, self
flourishing
Place
The rooms, streets and cities we move through, and how they make us feel before we notice them.
People
The relationships and communities that make us feel we belong somewhere.
Self
How we come to understand ourselves, and keep growing into who we could be.
Together they're my working definition of human flourishing. Everything below sits somewhere on this map.
About
A generalist on purpose
I grew up in Dubai and have grown with the city for about thirty years.
I started out designing interiors. Then I realised I was more interested in the people moving through a space than in the space itself.
That curiosity took me to Barcelona, Amsterdam and Mumbai, and into railway stations, government platforms, banks, schools and luxury retail. Each project taught me the same thing. The problem an organisation thinks it has is rarely the real one. The real one sits upstream, in a process, a handoff or an assumption nobody has questioned yet. I go looking for it.
Today I work across service design, user research, facilitation, foresight and AI safety. Different titles, one question: what helps people flourish, and what quietly gets in the way?
Now · Autumn 2026
What I'm working on
- StudioStudio
Deep Design Innovation
Visit the studioMy experience design collective in Dubai Design District, where research-led thinking shapes spaces and experiences.
- Futures & AIShaping
HuAI Futures Lab
Visit the labAn alternative learning lab for adults on keeping human agency in an AI world. Pro-AI and pro-human: how to use the tools without handing over our judgement, creativity and attention. It's also where I make the case that speculative design is a missing layer in AI safety: imagining possible futures concretely enough that people can question them before they arrive. Piloting in the UAE first, then India.
- Experiential educationOngoing
Teaching design differently
Bringing on-the-ground user research and AI into an interior design studio at the American University in Dubai. Before that, I designed gamified Design Thinking courses at the American University of Sharjah. The aim is design education that's practical, hands-on and freethinking.
- FacilitationOngoing
Workshops that get to the real problem
Problem-framing sprints and co-creation sessions on three continents. Most recently, a sprint where 35 participants shaped 23 initiatives across animal advocacy, food systems, AI safety and policy.
- Mental healthPrototype
Bloom
A mental health and well-being platform.
- CommunityExploring
RAM Club
Rise Above Mediocrity. A life design community for people who want to grow on purpose, including a playful, unintimidating take on getting to know yourself.
- Writing & mediaMonthly
Spaces Talk Zine & Engaging Media
A monthly long-form essay where I think out loud, and Spaces Talk, a zine on how spaces make us feel. Issue one looks at neuroaesthetics.
- CitiesCollaboration
Designing Belonging: Dubai 2030
A two-hour participatory live lab with the Philia Institute at Dubai Design Week. Groups step into the shoes of different Dubai neighbourhoods, test ideas for belonging, and vote on the principle the city needs most by 2030. Cognitive cities over fast cities.
Rooms full of people.
Workshops, events and learning experiences — I curate the room, the activities and the moments that get strangers talking to each other.
Questions I'm holding
The things I can't stop thinking about
How do young people thrive, not just cope, in AI futures?
How do we use AI without losing our own creative muscle?
What would a truly freethinking education system look like?
How can women entrepreneurs build without carrying self-doubt?
How do generalists say who they are without squeezing into one title?
How do we design cities for belonging, not just for speed?
How I build
Ideas grow in public
and round
again
- 01ListenNotice the signals: questions people ask, threads that keep coming up.
- 02HypothesiseTurn the signal into an idea that could be wrong.
- 03Test widelyTry it with many real people, not just my circle.
- 04Go deepFollow what holds up and dig into it properly.
- 05Release earlyShare it half-baked, once it's understandable.
- 06ValidateLet people show it's useful before it becomes a product.
- and round again ↺
I think best through writing and conversation. I love experimenting, new environments and learning in public, and I'm always looking for people who like to work that way too.
I recommend working with Lisa as she is a creative and accommodating young lady. She has vision and listens to clients needs. It was definitely a great experience working with her.
What I bring into a room
- Upstream thinker
- I find the problem under the brief, the one people often don't know they have yet.
- Warm connector
- I bridge the visionaries and the doers, and help architects, technologists, leaders and frontline teams understand each other.
- Honest
- I say what I know, what I don't, and what I'd test next.
- Curious & human
- Care is the method. People, spaces and cities are understood before they're changed.
Background
- MRes, Design & InnovationElisava School of Design & Engineering, Barcelona
- BFA, Interior DesignAmerican University in Dubai
- EducatorGamified Design Thinking, American University of Sharjah
- Jury memberSheraa
- Co-founderYour Experience Lab, started with a student
Next chapter: studying applied neuroscience, to understand the brain behind the experiences I design.
Off the clock: a philosophy meetup of strangers. Two hours, ten people, ten big questions.