Our latest episode looks at sabkhas – seemingly uninhabitable salt flats that might help us fight climate change. These salty ecosystems can sequester four times more carbon (per square meter) than rainforests can. Tell Me More: Sabkhas 0:00 / 0:00 1× This episode is really timely given that the UAE...
Hashem catches up with the Nakkash family: patriarch Wajih Nakkash, his daughter Aya, and son Omar. To celebrate their 40th business anniversary, Wajih recounts how the Nakkash journey started with a showroom in Sharjah in 1983 and an avant-garde Emirati couple that approached him to design the interiors of their...
Our guest is up-and-coming designer Meshary AlNassar. Hailing from Kuwait, Meshary’s journey into interior design started during childhood with American TV pop culture influences The Oprah Winfrey Show and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Hashem and Meshary discuss his “design education” surrounded by an all-female cohort and how he managed...
Omniya is an architect and a specialist in cultural heritage conservation, working between Cairo and London. She has worked on some landmark projects in the region, and now divides her time between the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation (EHRF) in Cairo and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in...
In this week’s episode we are transported to Cairo via Mexico City. Hashem chats with Mohamed Elshahed, curator, architectural historian and author of Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide. Hashem and Mohamed expand on how Cairo, the architectural compendium of 220 buildings and sites, was put together. The Lighthouse...
