Dubai-based collector Elie Khouri is to give his private art foundation a permanent home in the city, converting a villa in the coastal district of Jumeirah 1 into a public institution. The Elie Khouri Art Foundation will be redesigned by Counterspace, the practice led by architect Sumayya Vally, and is expected to open in 2028 with public exhibitions and educational programmes.

Khouri, originally from Lebanon, is one of the United Arab Emirates' best-known collectors. He made his name as chief executive of Omnicom Media in the Middle East and North Africa and has lived in Dubai since the 1990s. He began planning the foundation about five years ago, taking part in a collectors-in-residence programme run by the London-based Deflina Foundation, where he carried out feasibility studies into what Dubai's art scene needs.

The foundation will draw its first exhibitions from Khouri's own collection, which includes works by more than 300 artists, and will later rely increasingly on loans and collaborations. Khouri intends eventually to build a foundation collection separate from his personal holdings. The emphasis will be on global contemporary art, with art from the Middle East playing an important role, and the foundation will be led by director Caroline Louca, formerly of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism and Christie's Middle East.

The villa itself was home to an Emirati family in the 1980s, and Vally's designs retain elements of old-school Gulf architecture that many in the Emirates remember with nostalgia. Dubai has never had a major public museum, and privately backed institutions such as the Jameel Arts Centre and Alserkal Avenue have become the pillars of its art scene. Khouri argues that private foundations are how the city will build its own version of culture, and Louca says community engagement, through talks, lectures and education, will be a central measure of the foundation's success.