Reflective Surfaces Add Intrigue To A Fashionable Dublin Home

Dublin’s southern suburbs have an enviable stock of handsome semidetached houses—pairs of single-family dwellings that share a common wall. A couple living in one of these two-story homes bought its neighbor a few years ago, hoping to combine them someday. Now, with two teenage children and a steady stream of guests, that time had come.

“They’re a hospitable family who loves hosting dinners and having people stay,” begins designer Róisín Lafferty, founder and creative director of her eponymous firm, which collaborated with Ambient Architecture on merging the two properties—but not necessarily permanently. As Ambient’s founder and principal Stefan Hoeckenreiner explains, “The idea was that it could convert back into two separate houses to accommodate different family configurations or even be passed on to the children.” With that in mind, each half retained its entrance and staircase, while openings in the dividing wall were kept to a minimum and made reversible. An existing one-story extension at the back of the original home was matched by an addition to the new one, “creating a central courtyard that opens up the view to the rear garden,” Hoeckenreiner continues.

How Róisín Lafferty and Ambient Architecture Transform A Dublin Home

For Lafferty, the challenge was achieving “a seamless blend of the two properties” while retaining “a lot of the proportions of the existing houses,” which could have meant “a lot of rooms and a lot of doors,” she says with a laugh. So the designer banished traditional portals, moldings, and baseboards, instead specifying a series of plain floor-to-ceiling doors that integrate seamlessly with the surrounding walls whether open or closed. This, Lafferty confirms, “was one of the biggest investments of the entire project,” but essential for the sense of “free flow” she was adamant the interiors possess. The former front parlors, now connected by a full-height doorway, illustrate the strategy. The back wall of both spaces—dubbed the reading and music rooms, respectively—features a continuous, blue-painted bookcase, making them feel like a single volume when the door is open. And since the oversize panel is the same color as the shelving, it appears to be part of the built-in millwork when sitting flush against it.

Along with the two front rooms and stair halls, the residence includes a sitting room, dining area, kitchen, and media room on the ground floor, plus four bedrooms, a homework room, and an office upstairs—4,400 square feet in all.

Garden Views Balance The Home’s Neutral Palette

Another priority was “maximizing views of the garden from the main living spaces,” Lafferty continues. What might have ended up a narrow corridor at the rear was ingeniously turned into the airy sitting room. A deep book-lined recess, outfitted with a built-in sofa, faces an imposing marble fireplace, flanked by glass walls framing the verdant backyard vista. “We knew it was premium real estate for looking at the garden,” the designer observes. “But it was also the point of connection between the houses, and we wanted to celebrate that.” This included cladding the room’s upper walls and ceiling with bronze-tinted mirror—an unexpected choice that creates a feeling of height, space, and, by reflecting the outdoor greenery, being in nature. Lafferty admits the clients weren’t convinced at first, fearing “mirror would be too glitzy,” but she persuaded them to stay the course. “For me, mirror is magic,” she says, and in fact uses it throughout to enlarge rooms or bring in natural light. “It’s not a decorative finish but very much part of how you experience the spaces.”

The base palette is fairly neutral: floors of polished concrete or limed oak, also found on some walls; subtle greens, blues, and taupes, especially in the main bedroom suite, which Lafferty describes as “an oasis of calm.” But in many areas, the chromatic intensity is deliberately turned up. “I was looking to capture the family’s energy and sense of fun with additions of saturation,” she acknowledges. Primary colors and vivid tones appear throughout, sometimes in small flourishes, like the crimson dining table, and sometimes much bigger ones, like a whole room painted a single shade. “I’m very impressed they allowed me to make the office bright red,” she says of the second-floor workspace, a true study in scarlet. In the main bathroom, however, hues and textures are layered: The swirling reds, browns, and coppers of the Brazilian quartzite sink and floor are complemented by ochre-toned polished-plaster walls and patinated-brass cabinetry.

Artworks enliven several spaces, not least the music room, where a large print by British artist Elsbeth Shaw is a commanding presence. A pixelated image of a model in a catwalk show, its symmetry, palette, and style consciousness all spoke to Lafferty. “I think art, fashion, and interiors are all super connected,” she says. “Fashion is about color combinations and sculptural forms, but also about contrasts and playfulness, which informs my work.” She concedes that the ethos of couture is reflected in how the project’s details and finishing touches are as carefully considered as its larger, more architectural elements. The combined layout shows rock-solid planning, but the splashes of levity, novelty, and boldness are never an afterthought.

Tour This Dublin Residence by Róisín Lafferty + Ambient Architecture

RÓISÍN LAFFERTY: AOIFE SHINE; IMAD HUSAR. O’GORMAN JOINERY: MILLWORK. P.D. MARLOW: PLASTERWORK. MILLER BROTHERS: STONEWORK. M.J. DUNCAN & SONS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT NINE: SIDE TABLE (MUSIC ROOM). SAZERAC STITCHES: SCONCE. RUGVISTA: RUGS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM). THROUGH ACQUIRED: CHAIRS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM), TABLE LAMPS (MUSIC ROOM, SITTING ROOM), CHAIRS, RED VASE (DINING AREA), ARMCHAIR (SITTING ROOM). ROCHE BOBOIS: CONSOLE (ENTRY). LIGHT COOKIE: SCONCE. ROCK HILL: VASE (ENTRY), CHAIR (OFFICE). HAY: PENDANT FIXTURE (ENTRY, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). ANOUR: LINEAR PENDANT FIXTURE (KITCHEN). RÓISÍN LAFFERTY ESSENTIALS: VESSELS (KITCHEN), PLINTHS (MEDIA ROOM, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). DAVIDE GROPPI: PENDANT FIXTURE (DINING AREA). LOFTLIGHT: PENDANT FIXTURE (READING ROOM). AUDO COPENHAGEN: PENDANT FIXTURE (MAIN BEDROOM). MOROSO: ARMCHAIR (MEDIA ROOM). KAVE HOME: COFFEE TABLES. CC TAPIS: RUG. EDRA: SOFA. RANSOM AND DUNN: LAMP. NEMO LIGHTING: SCONCE (OFFICE). PULPO: GLASS SIDE TABLE (SITTING ROOM). EERO AARNIO ORIGINALS: WOOD SIDE TABLE. SERAX: VASE (DAUGHTER’S ROOM). SIMONE & MARCEL: SCONCES. SWEDISH NINJA: SCONCE (SON’S ROOM). ETHNICRAFT: SCULPTURE. GHIDINI 1849: SCONCES (POWDER ROOM). GRANLUSSO: TUB (BATHROOM). HOTBATH: TUB FITTINGS, SINK FITTINGS. TATO ITALIA THROUGH 1STDIBS: PENDANT FIXTURE. KAIA: SCONCES. THROUGHOUT TRUNK FLOOR: OAK FLOORING, OAK PANELING. STONE SEAL: CONCRETE FLOORING. FLEETWOOD PAINTS: PAINT.

10 Questions With… Ishraq Zraikat

Ishraq Zraikat On Her Love For Wool + Bedouin Weaving

Interior Design: How did your childhood contribute to your love of making and designing? 

Ishraq Zraikat: My mother was very artistic and into crafting. She made clothes for my siblings and me, as well as objects such as painted silk cushions and ceramics for the house. I have six siblings and we spent a lot of time playing together and making our own toys, which kept us busy and creative. I used to build houses for Barbies/dolls, or make clothes for them from whatever materials I could find. At a young age, I learned that we could make a lot of things ourselves instead of buying them. When I was 13, my mother taught me how to trace patterns and use a sewing machine, so I became interested in fashion design and started collecting magazines and creating fashion scrap books of the images that inspired me. I feel blessed to have grown up before the internet and digital age when printed media was the main source of information and knowledge. My parents had a Childcraft Encyclopedia set in our library and my siblings and I spent a lot of time reading the books over and over. My favorite volumes were How We Get Things and Make And Do, which were all about how humans invent and make things. Now as a mother, I have bought the same exact set for my children.

ID: You studied architecture and worked in the field for a few years while developing your fashion skills. Could you share your journey from architecture via fashion to textile art?

IZ: I enjoyed working in the field of architecture, but early on I knew I wanted to design and make things with my own hands. While I was working as a junior architect in Amman, I continued to design and make clothes in my free time and developed a relationship with a local fashion magazine doing photo shoots and writing stories. I quit my job in late 2004 and worked on a collection of deconstructed vintage clothes, putting on a fashion show in a parking garage in downtown Amman. The reviews were positive, but I knew I needed to leave Amman if I wanted to become a real fashion designer.

I moved to New York City where I got two internships in the industry, one at Anna Sui and one at AsFour (now Kai Kühne), so I experienced the fashion industry at two opposite scales. A while later, I got hired to be a NY-based fashion editor for a Middle Eastern publication called Skin Magazine. As an editor, I started going to textile fairs and (thanks to my press pass) had access to exclusive events where I connected with professionals in the textile industry. It became clear to me that textiles was the medium in which I could combine all my past educational and professional experiences. After three years as a fashion journalist, I moved to Milan to pursue a masters degree in textiles and new materials design at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NAVA).

ID: What interests you most about textiles and fabrics?

IZ: I am most fascinated by the fact that designing a final product can start by creating the raw material itself. The potential for creativity is huge as I can go back in the production chain and inject my DNA as a designer at any stage of the production process. What’s more, every creative and technical decision that is made throughout the production chain has an impact on the finished product. By exploring different combinations of a number of variables, the possibilities are literally endless. I realize that a lot of the way I work goes back to when I was a child watching my mother make things from scratch and be resourceful and creative in her problem solving.

ID: You have worked with Bedouin communities in Jordan and used hand-made Bedouin looms in your projects. How did you get involved in that and what does it mean to you?

IZ: After being introduced to weaving in Italy during my master of textile design course, I began to wonder about the forms of weaving that are native to Jordan and the region. I found a couple of women in the village of Jabal Bani Hamida, in central Jordan, who still have traditional Bedouin weaving skills, and who graciously agreed to teach and share their knowledge with me. Our relationship immediately became a friendship based on a shared love for weaving and our Jordanian and Arab identity. By being in these women’s homes, seeing their day-to-day lives, and knowing their struggles as well as their victories, I understood what weaving meant to them. They are not just keeping an old craft alive, but still innovating and adding to it where possible. I started to value craftspeople differently as a result of meeting these women. By learning from them I was able to go from being a ‘designer’ to a ‘weaver.’

ID: You are very interested in native Jordanian wool. How is it different from other wools?

IZ: While learning Bedouin weaving, I realized that the weavers in Jordan use imported wool rather than local native wool. I started to ask why and the journey to answer the ‘why’ turned into my ongoing research into our native Awassi sheep wool. This wool is unique because this breed of sheep is quite pure and has been around for centuries. Its wool is strong and on the coarse side, so it is ideal for rug weaving, which is what the wool is famous for. Through my experience with processing the wool, I realized that it has potential for many other uses. I have since created an archive of wool samples that serve as a reference for material choice for my artworks. It is incredibly satisfying to be able to create my own raw materials based on the desired end use. Now, I happily call myself a ‘material developer’ as well as a textile artist.

ID: For Amman Design Week in 2019, you showed a piece that was part performance, part functional. Could you talk about it?

IZ: Creative Being at Amman Design Week 2019 was an homage to the creativity of the Bedouin people and the beauty of their weaving craft. It was an installation that transformed the Bedouin floor loom from a linear weaving instrument into a spatial structure that still functioned as a weaving tool. The metal frame was dressed with a closed circular warp that rotated around the frame as it was woven, creating an enclosure reminiscent of the Bedouin tent. The weaver sat inside the tent while weaving. It was a performance piece with a live weaving sessions throughout the week-long event. Bedouin weavers and I took turns weaving and interacting with visitors while answering questions. On the last day of the events, we completed weaving the full closed circular warp, took it off of the metal frame and demonstrated how the woven piece can be transformed into two small rugs. I wanted to show that the spatial structure was also a functioning weaving instrument that produced finished products.

ID: Do you keep close ties to Jordan professionally? What challenges do designers face there?

IZ: Yes, I always try to keep close ties to Jordan because it is my home and it is still also mostly ‘undiscovered’ creative territory with so much potential. It is very familiar yet still unknown to me, and the discoveries are always exciting because of its unique geographic location and culture that goes back millennia. I am inspired by designers and artists in Jordan who are often exploring the same cultural and historical themes that I am exploring in my work, but through different media. Although the ideas and feelings may be common, the material and physical expressions of each individual’s exploration becomes a revelation.

In my opinion, the biggest challenge for designers working in Jordan is getting raw materials. An artist or designer living and working in the US can go online and order pretty much any material or tool they need and have it delivered to their doorstep. In Jordan, ordering or importing anything for personal use, a studio, or a business is subject to high customs taxes and a lengthy approval process based on vague guidelines.

ID: What inspires you creatively where you are based?

IZ: I live in the Hudson Valley, which has an animal fiber agriculture scene alongside a thriving art and crafts scene. It has been very informative and inspiring for me to see an actual micro-economy right in my backyard where there are people who produce a raw material that is processed and used by end users in the same area. There are several fiber and textile initiatives that are doing amazing work in developing this micro-economy to better serve its beneficiaries, as well as promoting the locally produced fibers to designers and artists in New York City and nearby areas. It was here in the Hudson Valley that I first discovered the concept of craftspeople and artists producing their own raw materials.

ID: A few years ago, you produced a filmed performance piece in the Hudson Valley where you built and warped a loom. What was the inspiration for that piece?

IZ: The Nomadic Weaving performance I did during New York Textile Month in 2021 was something I had dreamed up years before when I started learning Bedouin Weaving in Jordan. During my very first weaving lesson, I arrived at my teacher’s house thinking she would have a loom set up for me, and I would just follow the motions and weave. Instead, there was nothing set up. We had tea and she took me outside to the back of her house where she began to construct the floor loom from found objects, one of which was a metal rod from a broken handrail outside her house. She was constructing the weaving tool itself before she began to teach me. By witnessing that, I began to understand the logic of weaving itself. The weaving instruments are arranged based on the desired end product.

That is when I understood that the nomadic Bedouins had developed their crafts and tools to accommodate their transient lifestyle. Since they traveled so much, their weaving tools needed to be things they could abandon and recreate again. They also needed to be able to move their loom mid-weaving without ruining the textile, and so that it can be rolled up, moved, then rolled out again in a different location where the weaving can resume. The free-spirit of the Bedouin floor loom captured my imagination. Going to the Hudson River banks and seeing the driftwood gave me the idea to try the concept there.

ID: What are your biggest challenges as a textile artist?

IZ: Controlling the influx of visuals I get through digital media. It can be stressful to see how incredibly fast our industry moves. There is constant pressure to put our work out there before it becomes ‘irrelevant.’ Although I do not believe that relevance should drive any artist, the media creates this pressure in the way it talks about art and design. When I limit my exposure to digital media, I feel much more focused and able to explore what I am genuinely interested in doing, as well as more in touch with my own creative identity. I still remember the pre-internet era when I used to buy magazines and sit with each issue for a month, looking at the same images over and over until the next issue came out. I was thinking and working at a much slower pace, my natural pace. The fast pace of digital media doesn’t allow us to sit with our ideas and thoughts long enough to see them through the entire process of what I call the ‘mode of design.’ We are quickly distracted by new stuff all the time.

10 Questions With… EAST Architecture Studio

EAST Architecture Studio was founded in 2015 by architects Nicolas Fayad and Charles Kettaneh. Based in Beirut (with an office in the UAE as well) the pair have worked on projects around the Gulf, Middle East, and Africa. Last year, the practice won the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture for their sensitive renovation of the Guest House on the Rachid Karami International Fair site in Tripoli, Lebanon, the unfinished masterpiece by architect Oscar Niemeyer. Their careful context- and research-led approach, and the social ethos of the project (it houses a carpentry workshop aimed at reviving and modernizing Tripoli’s traditional woodcraft heritage and industry), highlights the way they work and the sort of projects they like to be involved in. “We are a research-based practice, this is really our main driver,” says Fayad. The studio is also very interested in something they call “incremental urbanism,” the idea that a small-scale project can set off something bigger or plant the seeds for a long-term vision or plan. The practice is currently working with a Lebanese developer on devising solutions for low income housing in various West African cities. “We are at the concept stage with a unit that can be used as a standalone structure or stacked vertically and horizontally up to seven floors. The idea is to cast modules in batches and place them on site in an efficient way using local materials where possible.”

A Conversation With EAST Architecture Studio

INTERIOR DESIGN: How did you get the project to renovate the Guest House on the Niemeyer Fair in Tripoli? 

Nicolas Fayad: The client, an international cooperation agency called Expertise France, launched a competition to renovate one of the pavilions at the fair and turn it into a platform to revive the carpentry industry of Tripoli called Minjara. They wanted this platform to be a place for collaboration between carpenters and local designers where furniture, lights, and objects would be produced and carpenters introduced to new ways of manufacturing. The carpenters are very traditional in the way they work, so giving them the opportunity to work with newer machines and putting them in touch with the local market and global market is vital. The challenge for us was to transform the Guest House, which was intended to house VIPs and exhibitors during big exhibitions, and inject in it a completely different programme including a workshop and exhibition space. The other challenge was intervening on a Niemeyer building that had never fully been completed, so trying to understand how he would have completed it and trying to be respectful of the initial design intent.

ID: Can you talk more about the fact that the fair wasn’t completed and neither was the Guest House? How did you go about understanding what Niemeyer’s design intent was?

NF: Most of the pavilions at the fair were built in terms of the superstructure; the concrete was there, but the finishes inside were never completed. And even where they had been completed, a lot of the interiors were dismantled and damaged when the fair was occupied by Syrian militias during and after the civil war. We found the pavilion in a state of complete despair and dilapidation, so the process was also about revealing and recreating those layers.

Charles Kettaneh: During our research we were able to get hold of original documents from the Niemeyer Foundation and original drawings from Niemeyer’s office, which gave us clues as to how he intended to complete the structure in terms of its materiality, colour palette and finishes. We were also able to understand a great deal by looking at precedents of buildings by Niemeyer that were constructed during the same time using the same techniques. We were able to see similarities between this structure and other structures elsewhere in the world. For instance, the Itamaraty Palace by Niemeyer in Brasilia, which is really very different in terms of program and even size and architecture, has an open rooftop on the last floor that is extremely similar to the roof conditions you find in the Guest House. There are these very thin ribs that are spaced almost exactly like the ones in the Guest House and you have these four columns that hold the whole structure.

ID: What condition did you find the Guest House in?

CF: Both Nicolas and I know the fair very well as we visited the fair on numerous occasions as architecture students at the American University of Beirut. But for some reason we had never seen the Guest House. Probably because it is a very low building that is a bit off-center and not located on the entrance axis. It’s also very understated and introverted. There are no windows, no punctures, it’s not a grandiose concrete structure like all the other arches and domes, it’s very simple and austere. When we first saw it, the vegetation was also really overgrown, not only inside the building but also outside so you could hardly see it. Yet it has a 2,500 sq m footprint so it’s actually quite large. Once we got inside we could see it had been used for storage and the courtyard in the middle, which is the main source of light for the interiors, was so overgrown that the whole space was dark. The other thing we immediately noticed was that the ceiling was black because the militias had used the space as a shelter or bunker and had probably lit fires inside it during the night.

ID: Were you concerned that a carpentry workshop might not be right for that space? What did you do to mitigate any potential damage to the building?

NF: The way we approached it is that instead of starting by looking at program, we looked at how we could intervene in a way that would be reversible. Should the program change our intervention could either stay untouched or be completely dismantled without damaging the original structure. We came up with a glass partition that seals the courtyard from the interior space, but never quite touches the ceiling, so there is always a line between the new and the old. The other reason the program didn’t really hold us back is that the open space that revolves around that courtyard, and the proportions of that space, allow for large-scale programs to coexist. The width of those spaces easily allowed for the placement of a workshop. And the height was just right at three metres for the insertion of the machinery that was needed for the workshop. Other than the workshop there are exhibition spaces, there’s an interiors library and a break out space. These didn’t need much doing to them at all.

ID: There have been lots of proposals over the years as to how the Niemeyer Fair might be renovated. Is the way forward doing it bit by bit maybe? With projects like yours that are small but respectful.

CK: A lot of the concepts that have come out have proposed the total transformation of the entire site. In the early 2000s there was even a project to turn it into an amusement park, which was absurd and scary for people like us who appreciate the architecture of the fair. The other problem with these comprehensive projects is that they require humongous amounts of money because it’s 10,763,910 sq. ft in size, so it’s a huge parcel of land. To renovate such a large project you need the funds, you need to clearly believe in it and you need everyone to agree and greenlight it. And in Lebanon we’ve always had difficulties taking big decisions, and even more so in Tripoli, which is a fractured place with different political groups. Thankfully no one ever has ever been able to do such a full renovation project.

NF: You don’t need funds or a masterplan to think of a larger renovation effort however. Our approach to the project was founded on this idea of incremental urban regeneration, where a small-scale intervention with an impact can encourage a larger vision or project.

ID: Staying with this idea of regenerating the fair incrementally for instance, if you had your pick of the buildings to renovate next on the site, which would it be and what would you do with it?

NF: I would definitely choose one of the smaller ones. I don’t know if you are familiar with what was supposed to be the nursery, it’s this star-like pyramid located near the second entrance. It would be an amazing little exhibition space. And I would also pick the Lebanese pavilion, which is not too large in scale and maybe turn it into something similar to what has been done in the Guest House; so identifying a real need in the Tripolitan economy or cultural sector. I understand these things need external funds but maybe the carpentry platform could be used as an example to revive another sector, perhaps something to do with agriculture also given the adjacency of that pavilion to greenery. The landscape of the fair is quite amazing and it’s actually one of the elements that is maintained, contrary to the pavilions that are completely abandoned. I would definitely pick the smaller pavilions first and think of programmes that respond to an urgent need locally.

ID: You live and work in Beirut. It’s a city that has known a lot of strife and is constantly reinventing itself and changing.

NF: Beirut has been built over time in a process of erasures. When the French came for instance they completely erased the Ottoman City and built the French-inspired downtown. It proved to be successful and Beirutis embraced it. Downtown was the heart of the city, where all the retail used to be, it was also a meeting point for all and filled with cultural institutions such as a beautiful opera. After the civil war reconstruction efforts once again completely erased previous layers. Downtown Beirut became a place that catered to the rich with apartments that are unaffordable to many and few pockets of space for social interaction. Now, if you go there it’s completely deserted. And the waterfront is completely blocked off too. Beirut is a coastal city where you almost never experience the sea. The only place where you are close to the water’s edge is the Corniche [a waterfront promenade]. I would say it’s also the only proper public space in Beirut.

ID: Why is erasure such a feature of the urban landscape do you think?

NF: This idea of erasure is also about trauma. We erase because we don’t want to remember our past or look back, we want to start from scratch. Whether or not this is the right way to do things is open to debate, but what is certain is that in Beirut it has failed because if you look at downtown Beirut today it’s completely empty. People don’t go to Martyr’s Square because they associate it with trauma. Martyr’s Square was the Green Line, the separation line or border between East and West Beirut, East being the Christian neighbourhoods and West being the Muslim neighbourhoods. And really that Green Line represents the line of death. I believe it is time for us to change this thinking. To really embrace our history as part of our heritage. You can’t simply dismiss those layers, you have to build upon them.

ID: What are some of your current projects?

NF: We have one called the Capsule Retreat, which completes next spring. Our client is an avid art collector so it’s a home filled with art for which we collaborated with various Middle Eastern artists on site-specific installations. It’s located in this very small village just 45 minutes from Beirut and the design process was an investigation into materiality, light and the vernacular local context. When concrete arrived in Lebanon early in the 20th century it was very much used for the bare structure in villages like these and then stone used as cladding on top. What we decided to do instead was to reveal the concrete, keep the structure completely exposed, and use stone in the landscape.

CK: Our largest project to date, which is breaking ground early next year, is a mixed-use arena in Lagos that will have a large retail component on the ground floor and also house a hotel. It sits on a beautiful site overlooking the ocean and will have a translucent facade made out of high-performance bamboo. Lagos is extremely rich culturally, the art scene is fascinating. And its geographical location is quite interesting, it sits at the edge of the ocean and is also a port city.

And we have an office tower awaiting planning approval in Kuwait. It’s an interesting project for us because it has a very corporate programme but is located in one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Kuwait, Al Qibla, which is rich in beautiful 1950s and 1960s buildings. What we decided to do was borrow from this architectural language that surrounds the site and come up with a facade that is in conversation with it in terms of proportions, materiality and composition. We tried as much as possible to think of it as a very porous mass, so it’s sculpted and cut off at different corners to allow for these larger urban windows that open up the tower to the city.

ID: There is so much creativity in Beirut. Some people have told me that what fuels it is the love/hate relationship Beirutis have with their city. Do you agree?

NF: I would say what drives us is entrepreneurship. Our government took everything from us so we are constantly trying to reclaim our lives, our city. This is the state of mind that allows us to keep moving forward. We have been brought down many times but we are constantly moving forward, trying to get on and figure out how we can actually come out of this crisis by ourselves. This is where the love/hate relationship comes from. Both Charles and I have lived in Europe and the US. We have both studied and worked in offices abroad and could have stayed there, but we both wanted to come back. It was a personal choice but we felt we owed it to our country to grow this community of entrepreneurs and keep this talent and knowledge here. It’s important because if everyone leaves we would be completely emptying our country of the little that remains. It has been like this for years now and we are hoping things will change. And that we can convince other people to come back too.

10 Questions With… Shahed Saleem

Shahed Saleem on the Architecture of Community Spaces

Interior Design: What inspired the design of the Ramadan Pavilion installed in the Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition Road Courtyard earlier this year?

Shahed Saleem: Each element is derived from a 19th and early 20th century drawing or a photo in the V&A museum collection. So the idea is that it’s a sort of reinterpretation of that colonial period of collecting, but also a rereading of it for a contemporary use. People from here went over there to record Muslim cultures as colonized places, but now there are large Muslim communities here. It’s a sort of post-colonial encounter. The Mihrab [a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying] is taken from a photograph of one in Aleppo and the Minaret is a famous photograph from the early 20th century of a 15th century minaret in Cairo. The dome is from an 1860s painting of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. So the pavilion contains different references from different places that have been reinterpreted and reassembled, creating new relationships between objects in the process, without worrying too much about historical authenticity. This idea of historical authenticity, that you have to have a scholarly approach to history, is a Western notion. But actually, when you go around the country, there are 2,000 mosques that all pull from different places and have their own approach to history and it’s fine.

ID: Why did you choose objects from the museum collection?

SS: That relates to diaspora communities and how we conceive of ourselves. Diasporas are often trapped within a narrative of themselves that is given to them through the colonial gaze so it’s much more difficult for people in diaspora situations to envisage themselves as anything different than what they’re told. You are given an impression of who you are. Like a museum gives you an impression of what your history is. How do you get outside that to imagine yourself differently?

ID: What led you to use bright colors in the Ramadan Pavilion?

SS: Color was an important thing to use, partly because it’s excluded from modernist architectural thinking. The idea is that color is often seen as too frivolous and not serious enough or childlike, and it’s about reacting against those canons of taste, which are quite exclusionary. Color also makes people feel much less intimidated and inhibited. That’s also why there was no floor or base to the pavilion, so no threshold. You didn’t have to ask yourself ‘Am I meant to go in there or not?’ It demystifies the whole thing. I think because it was in the courtyard of the museum, the pavilion also didn’t fall within any particular curatorial control. If it had been in a gallery there would have been a curator and a team that would have been keeping a much more careful eye in terms of what happens with it. I started to realize it was in bit of a no man’s land in the museum, so we could get away with it being fairly free in terms of the things it was being used for.

ID: Where you surprised about the way the pavilion was used?

SS: I think what the pavilion showed is that there is a real hunger for doing things in a new way. It was all happening in a space that was malleable and people seemed really enthused by that. It wasn’t just a mosque; it was a mosque when it was used for Friday prayers but it was also a place where people did drumming, a location for a fashion shoot, kids played on it and climbed up and down it and took pictures at the top of the Minbar [pulpit]. Some people would stand in the Mihrab and take pictures. Both men and women used it quite freely. So there was no gender separation around these elements so their religious symbolic meaning shifted. They still had a religious cultural significance but they didn’t have the baggage you might have within an actual mosque. I was pleasantly surprised by the way in which it was so easy for people to allow these symbols, which are usually quite specific religious symbols, to change meaning.

ID: How did your interest in British mosque architecture come about?

SS: My mum started a mosque in Catford, Lewisham, in southeast London, when I was young, so I was always involved in mosque activities and helping her organize community events. In my teens, my parents bought a house that they converted into a mosque. There was a group of people doing the fundraising so I was seeing cultural reproduction being self initiated from an early age. When I set up my own practice I started getting approached by mosques locally. I think people came to me because I had a familiarity with the whole process and could relate to what people were trying to do.

ID: What characterizes the British mosque; is there a British mosque vernacular?

SS: I think it has had different periods. From the late ’70s to the ’90s, it was a composition of different parts where you have bits of architecture that relate to local or domestic vernacular materials, like the brickwork or tiled roofs, or windows that could look quite residential. Then these get combined with elements that are Islamic replicas of domes, minarets and arches. In that period you got these quite interesting compositions and amalgamations of different architectural references, which I always found quite intriguing because there is a unique language that emerges from that. From the mid-’90s and through the early noughties you start to get a more Islamicized and historicized image emerging in buildings that were built from scratch but the language is of a historic mosque type building. This was quite a historicist phase. I liken it to the Gothic revival, the period when Pugin was recreating medieval Christian architecture. I think we are still in this phase but it is loosening up gradually and there are proposals for more contemporary, exploratory or experimental designs.

ID: Can you tell me about your V&A special project at the Venice Biennale in 2021, in which you explored the undocumented world of adapted mosques through three existing mosques in London. What sort of feedback did you get?

SS: We were focusing on the mosque in Britain as self-made community architecture and the creativity that comes out of that, the new types of visual culture and architecture. There was a lot of positive feedback, a lot of second generation Muslim people in the U.K. who didn’t realize that their lived experiences were significant enough for this kind attention and exhibition, so they were very moved by that. We also got feedback that the exhibition countered orientalist depictions of Islamic art and culture as medieval and historic craft by instead presenting everyday lived realities.

ID: You also paint and draw and sketch. What does this bring to your practice and research?

SS: I think as an architect or designer, you are always exploring visual language, it’s almost a compulsion to do so. It’s a form of inquiry and a form of processing what you see or think. A lot of my pieces are spatial or architectural in some way, and it’s often places I might have visited or seen or remembered that are particularly interesting architecturally or spatially. Sometimes I might have been doing drawings in a particular way, and then there might be a project down the line where I think the way I did those drawings is something I can bring into the project. I mainly draw in sketchbooks and then some stuff on separate bits of paper. It’s also about playfulness really. I think the idea of play is important, because you discover things you wouldn’t necessarily discover otherwise.

ID: For the Folkestone Triennial in 2021 you created a lantern installation and exhibition display at the local mosque alongside artists Hoy Cheong Wong and Simon Davenport. You hosted a series of workshops with local children who attend the mosque. What was that about?

SS: The idea of the workshops was about looking for a visual language that feels embedded within the experiences and histories of Muslim people in Britain. It’s a kind of visual language that reflects the experience of being diasporic and Muslim diasporas. The ongoing question is how does one do that without being trapped within these visual historic references of the Islamic past? The drawings that the kids did were adapted and I reworked them into a particular pattern that then also became the pattern module for the facade of the building.

ID: What do you think the next phase of mosque architecture might be in Britain?

SS: We’ve all been sitting around thinking what should the architectural language of the mosque should be. Perhaps we can take something historic and do something abstract with it? Or maybe let’s take this piece from a pattern and create a more contemporary interpretation of it? But in a way that’s still just playing around with form. Having seen what happened with the Ramadan pavilion, it makes me think that innovation in mosque design will come through a new form of use. That’s the next stage, for the actual programme, function and social meaning to evolve, and that will drive a more meaningful next architectural step. So I feel the next stage of what the mosque will be architecturally is going to be programme led.

8 Biennale Installations Explore the Social Impact of Architecture

In keeping with its title, “The Laboratory of the Future,” the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale features a focus on sustainability as well as a slew of contributions by African and African diaspora practitioners—marking a shift in the event’s traditionally Eurocentric mindset. From low-key installations to immersive and experiential works to research-based ideas, the show feels, at times, inconsistent as it finds new footing. Still, the Venice Architecture Biennale offers a great deal of exploration of ideas relating to the built environment, spotlighting the impact architecture has on power structures, social systems, equity, and inclusion.

8 Thought-Provoking Installations from the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale

Austria Pavilion – Partecipazione/Beteilingung

The Austrian pavilion explores, through a series of maps, models, photos, and text, the theme of colonization from an architectural and spatial point of view, including the role of the Biennale, which takes over much of the city. The event fills the Giardini site every year—formerly public and now walled gardens where most of the national pavilions are located—as well as the Arsenale (a historic shipyard), not to mention its city-wide events, creating a division between those attending and local residents.

The curatorial team, made up of architecture collective AKT and Viennese architect Hermann Czech, planned to take their project further and make the eastern half of their pavilion–including the courtyard—accessible to the public by connecting it to the rest of Venice via a bridge. They had buy-in from local residents and a program of events planned but the Biennale authorities, ultimately, rejected the idea. While the pavilion’s planned events are still happening in venues around the city, the bridge scaffold they were going to use stands in two forlorn parts. One in the pavilion’s courtyard overlooking Venice; the other in its now empty eastern section—a memento of what could have been.

Adjaye Associates – Kwaeε

This striking, nearly 43-foot-tall triangular structure by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye made out of stained black timber commands attention. Titled Kwaeε, which means forest in Twi, a dialect of the Akan language spoken in Ghana, this pavilion tracks the position of the sun throughout the day creating a forest of delightful and unpredictable shadows and light effects. Designed for public use, including debates, concerts, and more, the structure’s interiors feature tantalizing views through its patterned skin and two oculi. The installation also is modular and prefabricated so it can be reused and relocated to other sites around the world.

Mexico Pavilion – Utopian Infrastructure: The Campesino Basketball Court

The vibrant Mexican pavilion, curated by art historian and artist Mariana Botey, nods to campesino basketball courts, created to further recreation and sport in rural parts of the country at the start of the 20th century. Local communities quickly made them their own, turning the courts into multi-purpose centers of cultural life. The purple-and-yellow Venetian replica on display at the Biennale represents one such space. A life-sized 1:1 scale basketball court hosts regular ball sessions complete with chairs for viewers, a kiosk for coffee and drinks, games, and a jukebox. The utopia in the pavilion’s title refers to “the abandonment of grand narratives in favor of micro or macro processes,” says Lucina Jiménez, head of the commissioning body the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal). “It is in those small transformations where utopias are settled.”

Ireland – In Search of Hy-Brasil

Ireland’s atmospheric ‘quiet’ installation explores the material and ecological heritage of three remote islands: Inis Meáin, Sceilg Mhichíl, and Cliara. Peppered with native slabs of stone, the installation feature seats made out of discarded fishers’ ropes, a rich linen tapestry mapping the topography of Ireland’s maritime zone, and an island model made of sheep’s wool. Exhibition texts are written in Gaelic and Italian only as a statement about the colonization and domination of Ireland by the British. A 15th century manuscript referenced in the exhibition title speaks to this point. “Known as the Book of the O’Lees, or the Book of Hy Brasil, (because of a story associated with the book),” explains Mary Laheen, one of the pavilion’s five curators, “it is a medical treatise written in Arabic, translated into Latin by a Jewish physician in Sicily, then later translated from Latin to Irish by the hereditary physicians of the O’Flahertys. It demonstrates a different world order, one in which the lingua franca was not English.”

Olalekan Jeyifous

Nigerian-born, American artist Olalekan Jeyifous, who initially trained as an architect, created one of the most eye-catching spaces in the Biennale. The imaginary lounge of a futuristic and fictional All-Africa Protoport (AAP) is brought to life as a low-impact travel network between the ports of decolonized African states. In Jeyifous’s alternative timeline, the African continent has not been ransacked by colonial powers and the so-called African Conservation Effort (or ACE) has used indigenous knowledge to create renewable energy and green tech for decades. This AAP departure lounge can be found in the Barotse Floodplain in Zambia’s Western Province but there are others in Lagos, Mombasa, Port Said, Dar es Salaam, Durban, to mention a few. The vivid and lush painted scenes bring to mind the early 20th century Pan-African art movement, which aimed to unify African people and cultures and foster a feeling of shared identity and creativity among countries that had undergone the devastating impacts of colonialism.

Finland – Huussi – Imagining the Future History of Sanitation

Finland’s Alvar Aalto-designed pavilion declared death to the flushing toilet with an exhibition by the Dry Collective, a group of architects, designers, and artists led by project curator Arja Renell. The demise of this technology cannot come too soon, argue the curators, creating a symbolic archaeological excavation site just outside the pavilion featuring remains of a conventional toilet. At the heart of the pavilion stands a tasteful hut housing a Finnish huussi, or composting toilet, often used near remote holiday cabins. If widely adopted, composting toilets could save 30% of domestic water use, the installation’s creators assert, while by-products could be used to make more environmentally-safe fertilizers. At the end of the Biennale, the structure will be donated to a local non-profit organization, which has developed an agricultural site with allotments for it on the Venetian island of Vignole. In the meantime, the City of Helsinki is already walking the walk with two functional huussis in popular outdoor areas. Other sites for compostable toilets, mainly in outdoor recreation sites or islands in the city’s archipelago, also are in the works.

Andres Jaque (Office for Political Innovation) – Xholobeni Yards

Andrés Jaque and his Office for Political Innovation worked with a group of activists from Xholobeni in South Africa to create Xholobeni Yards, an immersive look at the widespread use of “shiny” materials in architecture through the example of Manhattan mega project Hudson Yards. Exhibition curators argue that the project’s vibrant hues are possible due to coatings made out of titanium, mined in places like Xholobeni to the detriment of the local community. They also claim the development’s stainless steel façades use chromite extracted from the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe and note that it was built over a railway—an engineering feat made possible by cobalt extracted from the Nyungu mines of Zambia. While taking in this information, visitors also encounter recorded testimonials from Xholobeni farmers and activities, as well as the sound of mining blasts.

Czech Republic – The Office for a Non-Precarious Future

The Czech Republic is currently renovating its pavilion in the Giardini so it was given a space in the Arsenale, which it filled with statistics about the precariousness of architecture from an employment point of view. Emblazoned across screens are a series of questions asked of young architects, such as: Do you work on the weekend? Do you work overtime? Do you get paid in full and on time? Can you imagine planning to have kids as an architect? Answers showcased in the pavilion are based on a research report titled “Working Conditions of Young Architects” and a survey conducted in 2020 in the country. Of the young architects surveyed in the Czech Republic, almost 50% said they work as freelancers for a single contractor and have no employment benefits; 66% said they work on weekends, and 32% said they don’t have a regular or fixed income. The exhibition also features interactive screens and easels focused on seeking solutions to create a brighter future for all.

Rapunzel Naturkost’s HQ Design Channels its Organic Roots

A visit to Rapunzel World in Southern Germany does not involve meeting the fairytale character with the famously long hair. Rather, you’ll be touring the new visitor center at the Legau headquarters of Rapunzel Naturkost, one of Europe’s best known organic food producers. But given the 81,400-square-foot, four-level structure’s soaring sculptural form, evocative architectural details, and otherworldly aura, it could well be home to the girl with the flowing locks.

The company’s motto Wir machen Bio aus Liebe roughly translates to We make organic out of love, and the visitor center was designed to radiate some of that warmth and passion. “Our brief was to make ‘organic’ a tangible experience and to offer a deeper look into the world of Rapunzel Naturkost,” says Martin Haas, partner and cofounder, with David Cook and Stephan Zemmrich, of HaasCookZemmrich Studio2050, the firm that helmed the project. Trifurcate in plan, the facility unites three wings under a floating roof that, at one end, not only rises to a 70-foot-high peak but also plunges to the ground, creating an imposing, towerlike volume. Comprising 120,000 multihue ceramic tiles on an all-timber frame, the flowing canopy forms a dynamic, shimmering skin that envelops the building, making it a boldly imaginative presence that nevertheless integrates into the landscape through its use of wood, clay, and other natural or renewable materials.

HaasCookZemmrich Studio2050 Turns to Sustainable Design and Fairytales 

At the heart of the center is a monumental spiral staircase inspired by the long braid Rapunzel let down from her tower. A sinuous form in oak and spruce sustainably forested in Germany and Austria, the twisting stair rises from the basement through the lobby atrium up to the roof terrace where a crow’s nest atop the tower gives visitors a panoramic vista of the surrounding Allgäu countryside and the Alps beyond. Despite weighing 13 tons, the 48-foot-tall triple-spiral is self-supporting and, like the roof, appears to be floating. It’s a feat of engineering that required its own structural consultant. “Fabrication was carried out in individual segments in eight stages,” Haas explains. “The primary load-bearing element is formed by the stair stringers integrated into the balustrade, made of curved 6-inch-thick laminated-veneer lumber.” Once on-site, the segments were lifted in by crane via an opening in the roof and joined together with the help of slotted plates. Any wood waste was used to create end-grain block parquet flooring for other areas in the visitor center.

The Visitor Center Includes Abundant Amenities 

Among Rapunzel World’s amenities are an interactive exhibition area and an organic market as well as a restaurant, cooking studio, yoga room, wine bar, and coffee-roasting plant, which occupies an airy two-story glass-enclosed space in the tower wing. “It’s the only part of the building that has to be mechanically ventilated, since the heat loads exceed normal levels,” notes HaasCookZemmrich associate and project architect Sinan Tiryaki. He also admits that housing such an extraordinarily diverse range of features in a single building raised one pedestrian but particularly time-consuming hurdle: bureaucracy. “It was a major challenge to get the mix of functions—meeting place, food production, supermarket—under one roof in terms of regulations, standards, and codes.”

Biophilic Design Elements Reflect the Local Landscape

The rural location also inspired the landscape design, which includes hillocks, a flower meadow, an orchard, and a tropical greenhouse in which coffee plants grow. Playful exterior details abound, such as custom rainwater downpipes made of small copper buckets stacked up to reach the wide overhanging eaves, while picturesque dormer windows project from the roof, each an ideal perch for any Rapunzel to sit and watch the world below. Haas, too, is susceptible to the general sense of enchantment. “The most beautiful moment of surprise during construction was when the roof-truss rafters were installed,” he says. “Suddenly you could see the shape of the entire building.” Pure magic.

Inside Rapunzel Naturkost’s Headquarters 

HaasCookZemmrich Studio2050: LISA RUIU; LENA LANG; YOHHEI KAWASAKI; ARIANE PREVEDEL; KATHARINA HOPPENSTEDT; ELISABETH WIEST; XUN LI; FELIX WOLF; SABRINA CARRICO

DESIGNGRUPPE KOOP: CUSTOM GRAPHICS

RAMBOLL STUDIO DREISEITL: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

ECOPLAN INGENIEURE: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

TRANSPLAN TECHNIK-BAUPLANUNG: MEP

MÖSLANG SITZMÖBEL; SCHREINEREI KONRAD: CUSTOM FURNITURE WORKSHOPS

GEB. FILGIS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR

SPENGLEREI LERCHENMÜLLER: CUSTOM DOWN­ PIPES (EXTERIOR)

PROBAT: ROASTING MACHINERY (COFFEE ROASTERY)

HOKON: CUSTOM STAIR (ATRIUM)

THROUGHOUT GASSER CERAMIC: ROOF TILE

GLAS TRÖSCH: GLASS

GIPP ESTRICH INDUSTRIE- & DESIGNBOEDEN: TERRAZZO FLOORING

HANS STEIDELE: RECYCLED CONCRETE

GÜTHLER GLASFASSADEN: CUSTOM FACADE

HOLZBAU ENDRES: TIMBER TRUSSES, FRAMES

HAGA: PLASTER

10 Questions With… Marco Campardo

Interior Design talks to Campardo about the beauty of process-driven design, producing experimental pieces in lo-fi, and why moving to London has been the “greatest gift he could have imagined”.

Marco Campardo Shares Insights into His Creative Process

Interior Design: Your work seems process-driven rather than aesthetically-driven. I’ve heard you don’t do patterns or decoration. 

Marco Campardo: I don’t but because it just doesn’t come to me. I don’t know how to do those things! My dream, like that of most designers and artists, is to bring something new into the world. And if not necessarily new, then something different. And I am much more captivated and excited by processes and creating pieces whose appearance is determined by that process or a specific technical device than by an aesthetic decision. Working in a process-driven way helps me not only understand the world better, but it means I don’t have to deal with the aesthetic question!

ID: Can you give me a specific example of this approach?

MC: Take my Jello collection for instance. I would say 99% of the time I spent working on that project I was resolving production issues. I didn’t pick up a pencil and draw the piece first. I did the opposite. I developed a process with a method that was quite unusual and from there I determined which shapes and forms could be made using that process. I was trying to answer certain questions along the way. Such as, is there a way to make a mould that costs 5, 10, 20 or 50 euros instead of 2,000 euros? The answer was cardboard. What should I do to stop the cardboard sticking to the polyurethane I poured in?  The answer was to use packing tape. The look I obtained at the end was the result of a process of back and forth and not of an aesthetic requirement.

ID: You made the prototypes for George, a collection for SEEDS London gallery, with your father, right?

MC: Yes, I engineered, built and made the first table—the first prototype—with him. I had been in contact with wood veneer manufacturer Alpi about a collaboration for which they were going to give me virgin material. But then I thought about the fact that designing specific shapes or objects is not really my thing, so what would there be of me in this piece? When I found out they had an entire warehouse full of offcuts that were never going to get used, I brought some of them home. Working with my dad was almost like going back to school. We used a process similar to cross laminating and did a lot of research on how best to glue the layers of material, how stable they had to be. If you glue panels without thinking about how they need to move, then when it is humid they move and the whole thing warps! So there was a lot of research involved, which we did together.

ID: Your work shows an openness to material experimentation. You don’t run the risk of being typecast as a designer who only works with one material!

MC: I think it’s because I’m a very curious person and sometimes when I feel stuck and have no ideas or don’t know what to do, I just switch the material I am using. Like when I decided to try making something out of isomalt (an artificial sweetener) and ended up using it to bind together these display stands I made for Selfridges department store last year. I am very attracted to the flexibility of not having to use a specific material. Having said that, I like all materials, though some terrify me.

ID: Are you concerned by the issue of sustainability in your work?

MC: Sustainability is obviously fundamental but it has to make sense. For a chair that will be used by several generations of the same family maybe it’s ok to use a material that will last forever but is harder to recycle. But for a window installation that will be around for two months, you should probably use cradle-to-cradle materials that you can fully recycle. There are design studios out there who make a big deal about being green and creating green prototypes but then when they are asked to make an 8,000-square-meter installation for an international art fair, they will use all new plasterboard and raw materials. That’s a bit odd I find. As designers we are always being asked about sustainability because it’s our job to think about the future and help shape it. But it’s a much more complex issue than just making a seat out of recycled plastic.

ID: I read that one of the most significant people in your life and career journey is Luca Lo Pinto, artistic director of the MACRO museum in Rome. Are these sort of mentors or champions important along the way do you think?

MC: Yes, absolutely. Luca was there during a moment of big change for me and gave me a lot of support and encouragement. He also asked me to make some stools for MACRO and that was a big deal. But working with him wasn’t the result of some sort of strategy. He was a friend first. That is why I always tell young designers who are starting out—and this is relevant for all creatives whether you are a designer, writer or product designer—sooner or later someone will knock at your door and if you have something to say, you need to be ready. That’s why you have to be consistent with your work and your research. Some designers are so busy seeking out new contacts that they create loads of expectation, perhaps too much. Then when the day comes that they are asked to show who they are, or say what you have to say, if there is no consistency in their work, if they don’t believe in the process, it will have all been for nothing. You need to be ready. And you don’t need loads of contacts. You just need the right ones.

ID: What do you think about the Italian design scene/sector? It has such an important history but no longer dares to innovate as it once did.

MC: I think this is not so much an Italian problem but a European one. It’s hard to find people who want to make the effort to really change things. To do so, you need to make sacrifices and go on a journey that is risky and eschews fashions or trends. What’s more, many companies are scared of taking risks. It’s no longer the 80s when the booming economy meant people could say “who cares, let’s just do it.” Now a company will think a million times before asking a 30-year-old to design a chair. I also think the education many aspiring designers receive leads to using methods that are less process-driven but rather based on fashions and aesthetics; things you could call a bit insubstantial.

ID: You moved to London in 2019 to be with your partner who teaches at the RCA, how does the city inspire you?

MC: London has been one of the most beautiful gifts. I came here when I was no longer that young, 37, and I had to reinvent myself from nothing to survive. I had closed my graphic design company in Venice and moved my entire life here. And building a business takes years as you know, so everything I have done, I have done since getting here. London is an ocean of sharks, and it put me in an uncomfortable situation. In uncomfortable situations, two things can happen—either you don’t make it or you react. Luckily, I reacted. So though London has been the most positive thing to happen to me, perhaps it’s the more negative side of London that helped me the most. In Italy I would have had it easier in terms of finding producers and quality of life, but I wouldn’t have been pushed to do everything I have done. Every day I feel like Rocky going up those steps. This is London, this is the beauty of it.

Sharan Pasricha, Ennismore Founder, Talks Hospitality Design

Born in India, schooled in England, and now based in London, entrepreneur Sharan Pasricha is the founder and CEO of Ennismore, a global hospitality developer and operator. Established in 2011, the company made its first acquisition, the hip Hoxton hotel in the city’s East End, a year later. Pasricha grew the brand across Europe and the U.S. and, in 2015, led the acquisition of Gleneagles, the Scottish heritage golf resort. After a merger with European hospitality giant Accor in 2021, Ennismore has become the fastest-growing and most diverse lifestyle-hotel company in the industry. Together with Hoxton and Gleneagles, the company now boasts 14 brands, including Mondrian, Delano, 21c, Tribe, 25hours, Jo&Joe, SO/, and Working From_, the last comprising coworking facilities in many of its locations. Now encompassing some 100 properties—plus roughly 140 more in the pipeline, around 30 of which are due to open this year—Ennismore is just as big on the F&B side, with 190 bars and restaurants in operation and up to 60 under development.

The Hoxton hotels are known for their serious design chops, and Ennismore has had an in-house interior and graphic design studio since 2016; it was expanded and renamed AIME Studios last year. The 30-person team doesn’t design every hotel the company operates, however, and the portfolio is growing so fast that, as Pasricha jokes, “You sometimes find the operators making design decisions or the designers making food decisions.” In order to provide oversight, maintain quality, and push designers to do innovative work in what is an ultra-competitive field, he has built up a group of external consultants around the world who “work with our owners to make that property the best version of the brand it can be.” We spoke to Pasricha recently about his eye-popping hospitality empire.

Sharan Pasricha and the Path to a Hospitality Empire

Interior Design: How did you get into the world of hospitality?

Sharan Pasricha: I sort of fell into it, really. I didn’t go to Cornell and get the handshake, or work my way up the hospitality career echelons. Most of what I’ve done comes from being a serial entrepreneur, so fairly unemployable, I guess! This is my third business but the one that’s lasted longest because it encapsulates so many of my interests, from design, storytelling, and architecture to behavioral science, consumer trends, hard-core operations, margins, time and motion studies, and labor costs. It’s unusual to have an industry that captures such a gamut where your canvas is beautiful physical spaces.

ID: Your first acquisition as Ennismore was the Hoxton in Shoreditch. Why that hotel?

SP: I was very attracted to the area, which back then was an outlier with an industrial past and a creative present, where old warehouses and lofts were being converted into uber-cool offices and residential spaces. The hotel had gained a lot of notice thanks to its clever marketing strategies, but it was also underinvested. I saw an opportunity to get the property to reflect the rapidly changing area more, in terms of design, food, and programming and also people and culture. We started investing in those things, and as Shoreditch continued to flourish, so did the hotel. We realized that this could be transported to other exciting neighborhoods that are changing fast.

ID: In 2021, you entered into a joint venture with Accor, the largest hospitality company in Europe. Why?

SP: Again, I never had this in my grand plan. What was apparent to me was that there was an amazing opportunity to build a company that, frankly, doesn’t exist because nobody is in that intersection of scale and authentic storytelling. If you want to be a fast-paced, dynamic global hospitality company, you need a partner to be able to deliver on that scale.

ID: What are your key future markets and openings?

SP: Our business is biggest in Europe but growing in the Middle East and Asia, and substantial in the Americas, where I think there’s a huge opportunity for us. In terms of openings, the Maison Delano Paris opens this month; the first Mondrian in Southeast Asia launches in Singapore in spring, followed by the 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis, the SO/Uptown Dubai, and the Hoxton Charlottenburg in Berlin, which is on a beautiful tree-lined residential street. Since we’re a brand-first organization, we’re only as good as the neighborhoods we’re in.

A Closer Look at Ennismore’s Hospitality Locales

Claudy Jongstra: 2022 Interior Design Hall of Fame Inductee

Dissatisfaction with working in the fashion industry was a major career catalyst for Dutch textile designer and artist Claudy Jongstra. “We had to produce eight collections a year so there was no time for refinement or aesthetics, it was just machinery, production,” she recalls. The endless turnover in fabrics made her unhappy, too. What she had loved about fashion as a little girl, whose mother made the family’s wardrobe out of “beautiful fabrics,” and as a young woman studying fashion design at the Utrecht School of the Arts, was the freedom it provided. “By making your own clothes, you develop your own identity and individuality, and it gives you a feeling of independence.”

Claudy Jongstra Discovers a Passion for Textiles

Visiting a 1994 exhibition at the TextielMuseum in Tilburg, Jongstra was bowled over by a traditional nomadic yurt. “It was literally a house made of felted wool,” she says, still sounding excited so many years later. She quit her fashion job, got work cleaning offices in the evenings and, locked up in her Amsterdam atelier, devoted herself “to finding out everything possible about this material.” Two years later she showed the results of her labors to the curator of that exhibition. “She immediately purchased four pieces for the museum collection,” Jongstra says. “That’s when I thought, Okay then, this is really the path I have to go down.” So Jongstra spent the rest of the decade creating innovative felted materials that spanned the categories of art, craft, and fashion. John Galliano, Donna Karan, and Christian Lacroix used them in their clothing designs, and the Jedi knights in Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace wore coats made of her felt.

In 2001, wanting to work on large-scale pieces and control all stages of the production process, including growing her own wool, cultivating plants for natural dyes, and following sustainable artisanal practices, Jongstra moved her business to rural Friesland in the northern Netherlands. There, she not only set up a design studio and atelier—and began earning public commissions from such heavyweight firms as Deborah Berke Partners, Gensler, Reddymade, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects—but also established a flock of Drenthe Heath sheep, an ancient breed that lives on heathland, “maintaining it in a very natural way,” she explains. “Their quiet life is reflected in the quality of the wool—it’s shiny and has long fibers, you can see it’s healthy and vital.”

The same could be said for the plants Jongstra and her team grow for dyeing the wool and other fibers she then felts. Frustrated by the toxic pesticides and chemicals used in commercial vegetable-based pigments, which also cause variations in color quality, she created her own biodynamic botanical garden to propagate heritage plants. Over the years she has recreated ancient recipes for many hues, including centuries-old Burgundian black—a warm, complex shade incorporating walnut, indigo, woad, and madder root dyes—which was showcased in Viktor & Rolf’s 2019 haute-couture felted-wool collection. She has also revived a distinctive red Rembrandt used, which is made from madder root. “It takes three years to grow and two to dry before it’s ready,” she says. “But it’s worth the wait because you get a top-quality product.”

Today, Jongstra’s enterprise spreads across two sites, not far from one another. The first centers on agriculture, with a farm, bakery, garden, and greenhouse; it’s here that the dye plants are grown. The other location, where the emphasis is on craftsmaking and research, is a compound of mostly cottagelike buildings housing the atelier, design studio, dye workshop, accommodations for four interns, and Jongstra’s own home. The newest addition is a modern building acquired from the neighboring carpenter. It has been renovated with recycled materials as a place of learning, sharing, and experimentation that Jongstra calls Loads, in the sense of filling up or enriching. While not a school, per se, Loads is dedicated to “transferring ancient knowledge to the younger generations,” she notes, the art and craft of “weaving, spinning, making, slowness, all related to wool, of course.” It runs a four-day workshop tantalizingly named Farm to Fiber to Fashion.

In the same knowledge-sharing vein, Jongstra has started to collaborate with farmers in Spain who want to transition to alternative crops such as flax, hemp, and plants for natural dyes. “The traditional farm is not the farm it was,” she observes. “It is a place where people can meet—scientists, designers, artists, co-creators—and that the farmer can diversify and have an impact on biodiversity.” This is more than savvy agricultural management. “Understanding the cycles of nature and developing holistic processes helps you feel less alienated,” Jongstra believes, so this ethos becomes an antidote to a world that she regards as having become too complex.

Does wool still hold surprises for Jongstra? “It’s a lifelong journey, with lots of side roads,” she says with a smile. One such byway has led her to explore what can be done with all the waste produced by the wool industry. “In the Netherlands alone some 1.5 million kilos of wool are burned annually because we don’t value it and because shipping to Asia is too expensive,” she says. Over the past three years, she has developed an industrial woven textile made from wool waste—incidentally her first foray into weaving—which is produced in the northern Netherlands from yarns spun in Donegal, Ireland, because there are no Dutch spinning factories anymore. Jongstra and Stefan Koper have established an initiative called Weved, which collaborates with designers on creating products using the textile. It has already partnered with the social design brand Re-gained and Studio Floris Schoonderbeek, both of which launched new pieces of furniture incorporating the fabric at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan. And to think the journey started with a humble yurt.

The Work of Claudy Jongstra Studio On Display Around the World

10 Questions With… Roula Salamoun

Roula Salamoun

Interior Design: Tell me about your childhood. Did you enjoy making or creating things growing up? 

Roula Salamoun: I grew up between Montreal and Lebanon and also spent time in the US. I’ve always been into crafts and from a very young age I was trying different techniques and materials like painting on glass and working with clay. I was also fascinated by perfumes and had this huge collection of perfume bottles and I could recognize any scent. I wanted to design perfumes and the bottles they came in. I outgrew that career plan but not entirely, actually, as I wanted to study chemical engineering at one point. I ended up doing the next closest thing to my passion, which was architecture. It’s the strongest major in design in Lebanon. 

ID: Did you also study product design? Do you practice architecture? How do the two complement each other?

RS: No, I did a master’s in architecture at Columbia University. So I’m really an architect in the hardcore sense of the word. I did a minor in studio arts at Beirut University during my first degree and that was a way to experiment with my hands and also work at a smaller and slightly more sculptural scale. I like the symbiosis between the two fields. My approach to thinking about materials is very similar to how you approach construction. I will think of what results I want in a piece. And I go beyond regular materials. Like for the Anatomy table and mirror for example, I did a lot of research to find out as much as I could about ultra high performance concrete. This resulted in a thinness to the piece, which from afar almost looks like ceramics. For the Strata tables I experimented with marble powder and resin to create texture. I still practice architecture, but architecture is much slower, especially today in Lebanon with the financial crisis, the lack of liquidity, and the general difficulty to build.

ID: Tell me more about your Strata rugs, which were commissioned by renowned third-generation Beirut carpet gallery Iwan Maktabi.

RS: The rugs are all hand woven using Himalayan wool and natural silk. The first rugs were the Maxi and the Mini, which were these organic shapes that are complementary and embrace each other. I produced two colorways, a blue and green one and a warm pink, orange-brown and red one. Iwan then asked me to design an additional rug so I created a more rounded one in more monochromatic tonalities: sand, beige, and grey. We’re currently working on some new shapes as the project has been very successful. Iwan is so knowledgeable it’s insane. He’s an encyclopedia when it comes to carpets and knows every single detail and story about them, it’s fantastic.

ID: It’s interesting that despite selling some very classical and traditional carpets, Iwan Maktabi also stocks and commissions contemporary rugs.

RS: Yes. A few years back the gallery started to collaborate with Lebanese designers to produce limited edition rugs. Last year they did a very big show in Dubai where they showcased the work of a lot of creatives so they have really invested in Lebanon and Lebanese creatives and pushed the limits of what rugs and rug design is and could be. The perception of rugs in this region is the very classical carpets that are passed down through the generations, so this investment in contemporary design is an amazing thing. They also have a store in Dubai now and opened a space in Alserkal Avenue [a contemporary art district] called Iwan Maktabi Lab, where they run events. They are showcasing new contemporary carpets again at Downtown Dubai this year.

ID: Tell me about your most recent launches: the Strata tables and Archipelago couches. What was your your inspiration for these pieces?

RS: The tables, like the rugs, are an exploration of texture and color. The table top looks rough but actually has a silky finish because it’s a mix of resin and marble. We made sure the silky finish wouldn’t be shiny so that you would look at it and think one thing but then touch it and have a different sensorial experience. The layers are inspired by the strata you find in cliffs, rocks, and mountains. As for the couches the inspiration came to me as I was working on the tables. I think of them as similar geological elements but zoomed out. So the play of textures is still present. The back and the base of the couch use this textured chenille fabric that is soft and fluffy while the other parts are made from a vegan suede that is smooth and silky. The tapered base of the seats looks sort of eroded by the elements and the top represents the mountains. And the concept was this archipelago or aggregation of insular elements that can be used together, or independently. So this geological inspiration stayed with me and I started seeing it at different scales.

ID: A lot of your products are made in Lebanon. What is the making and manufacturing scene like there? Is it made up of smaller workshops or also larger brands and factories?

RS: It’s a mix of smaller artisans and fabricators and larger manufacturers. There are big companies that work at industrial scale and there are artisans that work at the boutique scale on a per order format. You will find a bit of everything. The fact that Lebanon is so small in terms of its design and culture industry is kind of amazing actually because you can hear of an amazing artisan in Tripoli and you can just go for a half day or full day whenever you like because it’s so close. You don’t have to fly out or stay overnight. This kind of of proximity gives you access to so many different artisans and know-hows that are distributed all over the country. Paradoxically the crisis has strengthened exports of certain wares as people have had to expand their businesses abroad. So certain kitchen makers for example, who were making kitchens only for Lebanon, now might export towards the Gulf or Egypt.

ID: How has the economic crisis affected design and designers? I know Beirut Design Week hasn’t happened now for a few years and the House of Today Biennale, which had been quite successful, is also on hold. How challenging and difficult has the economic crisis been for designers and people in general?

RS: I think it was very difficult and we’re still in it, the crisis is not over. But I think that people have adapted because they’ve had to adapt. Personally, I felt we lost so much. Then there was this currency devaluation and it was like being held hostage in a country where you have chosen to live and set up a practice. So I think there was a sort of adaptation even at the mental level. Then the blast happened and it provoked even more despair and anxiety. Personally I was not affected by the blast as much as others. I was in my office in Hamra so glass got broken, but I didn’t get injured. My husband was injured however as he was much closer to the silos and my mother-in-law was injured. I also have friends who were stuck under collapsed ceilings. I consider myself fortunate in that respect but it was just a matter of geography. All these things happened in the space of a year and I think we’ve processed what could be processed. Now there is a wish, at least on my part, to move past and go back to creating and regain a sort of power on the narrative and regain control of my life, my practice, my abilities to do things and make them happen. Obviously I’m speaking for myself but perhaps some other people can relate. But it’s been difficult in the sense that obviously the financial means of people in the country have been dramatically scaled down.

ID: How did the design scene react? I know some designers have left. I realize not everyone can leave.

RS: I think that there’s been a lot of initiatives, a lot of energy put by people in the design design field to organize auctions abroad, exhibitions abroad, to allow designers from here to retain or to gain some visibility and get back into the scene. Leaving was a daily consideration for me for about a year until the beginning of this year when I was like, we’re staying. I mean, at least we’re here for now, and we’ll see how it goes. With regards to leaving, even if you can leave, there’s the question of where do you go? And how far do you go? We have a complicated relationship with this country. You go from hating it to loving it to being really attached to it. But there is a need as a working creative to have at least one foot abroad if possible. That can be having an exhibition somewhere now and then, a freelance visa somewhere or having representation somewhere, something to keep our names out there.

ID: There’s a section of your practice called Extraground, which seems to be a space for material experimentation and research in the widest sense. Can you talk a little about that?

RS: This part of the practice is what I see as the ‘archives’ you use when you’re doing a project. There’s so much research that happens to reach the final point, you produce so much material, you meet artisans, suppliers and so on, and none of this shows in the final product. The idea was to create this archive that eventually could be accessible to others and it could contain research that is urban, cultural or material based. As part of this side of my practice, in 2020 I co-founded a collective after the explosion with a group of Columbia alums. The aim was to keep the narrative going, keep Beirut and Lebanon in the news and people’s minds.

ID: What are you working on right now? What’s occupying your creative energies?

RS: There are some architecture and interior projects I’m seeing through to completion. But something I’m really keen on is work that I see as the intersection between the products I do and architecture. I don’t know if that makes a lot of sense but I want to take the concepts developed at the product scale and extract certain elements from the language, the geometry, the approach and inject them back into architecture and interiors. Working at the product scale is quicker, and it’s also easier to do certain experiments, but then what do you learn from it and are you able to take these small scale experiments and inject them into a bigger scale. I think this is where things can become super interesting because the two strands of my work that are separate will start to become one.