How to design a majlis

How to design a majlis comes down to one decision and five layers. The decision is where it goes: a room inside the villa, an annex on the plot, or shaded seating or a tent outdoors. The layers are seating, light, floor, walls and ceiling, taken in that order, because the seating plan fixes the room's proportions and everything after it follows. Rules change with the decision, so it comes first.

Which seating layout suits the room?

Majlis seating hugs the walls, so the plan is a list of wall lengths before it is a drawing. A U-shape along three walls suits a long room and leaves the fourth for the door and a serving table. An L-shape suits a corner room with windows on two sides. A full ring only works where the doors sit in the corners.

Keep each run continuous where you can. Every door, window and air-conditioning grille that interrupts a wall costs seats, and the break needs designing rather than leaving as a gap. Decide early between floor cushions, a low fixed platform and low sofas, because a platform hides the wall behind it: sockets, grilles and wall lights have to be placed around it before it is built. The seating specification itself, from seat depth to removable covers, sits on our majlis design page.

How should a majlis be lit?

In layers, because a majlis does most of its work after dark. A general layer from the ceiling serves large gatherings and cleaning. A concealed strip or cove around the ceiling feature sets the evening mood. Low, warm light at the seats, from wall lights above the backrests or lamps on side tables, is what conversation needs. Give each layer its own switch or dimmer.

Who installs it depends on the emirate. Dubai Municipality's simple-maintenance list includes maintenance of electrical works, carried out by an accredited contractor without a permit. In Abu Dhabi, the 2020 Electricity Wiring Regulations allow work on electrical installations only by contractors the distribution company has assessed and approved, so the firm fitting your lights needs that approval as well as its licence.

Floor, walls and ceiling

The floor carries more of the room than usual, because guests sit close to it. Carpet or large rugs take floor cushions and soften the echo from hard walls; stone or tile stays cool and suits low sofas with a rug in the middle. Dubai Municipality lets an accredited contractor change a floor without a permit, while Tilal Al Ghaf asks owners for written consent before any floor covering is replaced.

The walls frame the seating rather than compete with it. Timber panelling, fretwork screens in the mashrabiya tradition, plaster mouldings and fabric panels all suit a majlis, and the top of the backrest is where a panel should start or stop, so the joinery and the seating belong on one drawing. Fabric and timber also absorb sound, which a stone-and-glass room needs once every seat is talking.

The ceiling is the place for the centrepiece: a stepped or coffered gypsum design, timber beams, or a raised centre with hidden light above the middle of the room. A suspended ceiling needs no Municipality permit in Dubai when an accredited contractor fits it, but some communities class a false ceiling as a major work with its own fee and deposit, so check the community's list before the drawings are priced.

Send us the room and guest count

Traditional or modern majlis: which suits the villa?

A traditional majlis keeps floor cushions with backrests and armrests, woven textiles, a carpet across the middle, carved timber and a patterned ceiling. A modern one keeps the layout and changes the pieces: low upholstered sofas in the same wall-hugging run, plain panelled walls, concealed light and fewer, larger patterns. Plenty of villas mix the two, with modern seating under a traditional ceiling.

Whichever way you go, fix it before the joinery is drawn. The seat height sets the height of every panel, sill and switch around it, and changing style after the panelling is made means remaking it.

How to design a majlis outdoors or in a tent?

Outdoors, a majlis is shaded seating in the garden, seating under a pergola, or a seasonal tent. Shade structures are the lighter route. The 2021 Dubai Building Code leaves lightweight structures such as canopies, parking shades and pergolas out of plot coverage, and in Emaar's villa communities a pergola or awning is approved in writing only in materials that match the villa's own woodwork or paint.

A tent majlis has the fullest published rulebook, from Abu Dhabi City Municipality's 2025 regulations for Al Falah: fabric, tarpaulin or palm fronds, with glass and aluminium windows allowed; one tent per plot, inside its boundaries; no doors or windows opening onto the external fence; up to 100 square metres and 6 metres high; and removal whenever the Municipality asks. Guest or service rooms built as partitions inside a tent are not allowed; an annex is licensed on its own, through the electronic building licensing system.

What the brief should settle

1. Room, annex, pergola or tent, and the community or municipality whose rules apply to the plot.
2. The number of guests at the busiest gathering, and whether the household needs one majlis or two.
3. Seating type: floor cushions, a fixed platform or low sofas.
4. The lighting layers, with a switch or dimmer for each.
5. Traditional, modern or mixed, decided before the joinery is drawn.

Design fees follow the usual methods: 10 to 20 percent of the project, or a flat fee that AI Designs publishes at AED 20,000 to 150,000 and above. The meaning of the word and the five types are on our majlis explainer page. The same brief then goes to several Dubai design studios, so their proposals can be read side by side.