The bin Shabibs
Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib are multidisciplinary urbanists, publishers, and cultural engineers from and based in Dubai.
Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib as featured in Kinfolk Issue 24, photograph by Alexander Wolfe via alexhunting.co.uk
A moment from the bin Shabib’s profile in Freunde Von Freunden, photograph by Robert Rieger
The brothers’ most internationally recognizable project is the decade-strong, design-forward legend of Brownbook, a bi-monthly print magazine. Brownbook was active until 2017. Published out of Dubai, it was an “urban guide to the Middle East” featuring architecture, profiles, and intimate stories from the region in nearly 70 issues. The magazine was found distributed in coffee shops across Dubai—some of these cafes developed by the brothers themselves—and in bookstores and magazine shops “in the know” around the world.
The mission of the magazine itself could be seen as the mission of Ahmed and Rashid, who are from Dubai and have collaborated across the entirety of their professional work to “[advance] the urban identity of the contemporary Middle East,” according to their shared portfolio site. They also mirrored each other’s higher education experiences, in Boston and at Oxford University.
Special foldout project supplements from Brownbook magazine’s issue 41, including “a guide to Terangeles (the Iranian district of LA),” via the magazine’s creative director Ryan Miglinczy
A selection of Brownbook magazine’s issues, via the magazine’s creative director Ryan Miglinczy
Pip Usher interviewed the brothers in Kinfolk’s Issue 24, noting that “[a]longside Brownbook, the brothers explore what they term ‘cultural engineering’ in its many guises—publishing, exhibitions, and most notably through urban development projects.” Rashid spoke to Usher in the interview: “‘Brownbook and our other projects try to reinforce our identity to the world because that’s what the rest of the world does—constantly reiterates its identity,’ Rashid says. ‘And that serves to reaffirm our identity within ourselves.’”
Ahmed and Rashid appear as guest speakers on occasion in venues usually associated with architecture or cultural practices, as seen in the above videos. They were recently involved in the United Arab Emirates’ new government development initiative as Cultural Advisors at the Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Image of Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib as featured in Kinfolk Issue 24, image by Alexander Wolfe via alexhunting.co.uk
Bin Shabibs homepage thumbnail image via Kinfolk Issue 24
More bin Shabibs
Ahmed and Rashid’s collaborative portfolio site, binshabib.com
While Brownbook has closed as a magazine, its Instagram, @brownbook, serves as an archive for the nearly 70 issues.
Freunde Von Freunden 2016 article profiling the brothers: How Brownbook gives voice to the modern Middle East
Recorded lecture, Studio CE at 10 Years: Retrospect and Prospects, hosted by London’s Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture