S ince joining DSA in 2023, as Studio Design Director, Gareth Cain has made significant strides, bringing his wealth of experience from working with leading international architectural firms. With a solid history of successfully managing teams and delivering innovative design solutions, Gareth continues to leverage his expertise to drive creative excellence at DSA, while fostering specialised knowledge within the studio. His leadership and vision benefit the firm’s growth, as he applies his comprehensive understanding of design across various sectors to shape impactful, forward-thinking projects.

With over two decades of diverse experience across international markets, Gareth has worked extensively in both the UK and the Middle East since 2011. His deep knowledge of the rapidly evolving markets in the Middle East is especially valuable given the region’s dynamic growth. Gareth’s expertise covers a broad range of sectors, including hospitality, residential, retail, commercial, and mixed-use developments. His insight into these sectors is actively shared with DSA, driving the firm’s ongoing success. His background as both an architect and interior designer brings a unique, multidisciplinary approach to every project.

Gareth emphasises the importance of DSA’s focus on the UAE, where the firm was originally established 25 years ago. “Part of our immediate strategy is a renewed emphasis on the UAE. While we’ve had considerable success in KSA and are growing our office and client base there, we want to remain an integral part of the UAE’s story of evolution,” Gareth says.

In addition, Gareth highlights the firm’s drive to diversify its portfolio. DSA has long been recognised for its substantial hospitality portfolio and its iconic residential developments across Dubai. “We’re now exploring new sectors to ensure continued growth. This includes forging strategic partnerships to strengthen our presence and success in these areas,” Gareth notes.

As technology rapidly evolves, Gareth stresses DSA’s commitment to staying ahead of the curve. “As for the future, DSA have always been an early adopters of design technology advances; we switched over to BIM completely for all of our projects back in 2012. More recently, we launched D.A.R.I.A (DSA Architect of Record Intelligent Assistant), she’s an AI fed entirely on codes and standards and kept up to date and refined by our AOR team.

Looking to the future, Gareth underscores the importance of adopting new technologies while retaining creative control. “We all know that the adoption of new technology is key, just keeping pace with change requires constant attention. Differentiation for architects is going to come via how you adopt technology. It’s coming too fast for us to wait to be told how to use it, we can forge our way. That offers some hope for liberation from software agendas that are in danger of becoming too dominant and allows us to refocus on buildings over their digital counterparts.

We may see push-back on some technology. We’re already seeing it when it comes to AI image generation. As technology propels forward, we might see an opposing Nostalgia emerge.

As with so many applications for AI, the man/machine hybrid will succeed best. The challenge and opportunity are to create and adopt new workflows that integrate AI into a process where the designer does not surrender creative control or get lost down a digital rabbit-hole.”

In his leadership role at DSA, Gareth is focussed on fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing, nurturing talent, and delivering exceptional value to clients. His commitment to DSA’s long-term development and strategic growth is evident as he continues to build on the firm’s reputation for excellence and innovation.