UAE urban housing and planning history discourses commonly assume a sharp division between the pre-oil (before the 1950s) and the post-oil (since the 1960s) eras. It is a misleading assumption that flattens historical legacies and exempts pre-oil tribal and maritime built landscape from having a bearing on the emergence of more recent ‘iconic’ villas for the Emiratis/UAE citizens. Besides, status quo urban narratives are further dismissive of non-iconic citizen centric modern housing prototypes of the late 1960s. In this context, our approach is to illustrate the intertwined evolution of contingent driven dwelling features, changes as well as continuities across the pre-oil and post-oil eras. By interconnecting history with user-led spatial changes in current Emirati houses, we argue that, while sustainability has become more of a catchphrase and the ‘iconic' villa façade—the marketing brand, the concept, acceptance, and spatial realization are indeed set by historical overlays of local and transnational experimentation, arbitration, and adaptation. Thus, the current design and policy led national housing prototypes would be corrective, regenerative and successful if assembled through an iterative design process that accommodates emerging sustainable frameworks as well as user-driven spatial interventions. This approach sustains the socio-physical legacies of the Emirati houses and their cultural legitimacy in the built-environment.
