T Sakhi puts the emphasis not on different ‘disciplines’ but rather on
“ways of thinking,” says Tara, expressed in architecture, product
design, installations or even film. Her sister Tessa adds that they
enjoy working with craftsmen, designers, musicians, sculptures,
writers, and filmmakers, to “enrich the experience of each project,”
and asserts that they are “fascinated by imperfections, and traces of
time on materials, as a benefit.”
Clients from a range of sectors have bought into their vision, from
pop-up nightclubs to high end restaurants, to private residential
projects. Further examples include a glass-blowing workshop in
Murano, Italy, and an ‘ecstatic experimental dancing space’ in
Tulum, Mexico. Further raising its international profile, the practice
has created its first Lebanese pavilion for the fifth edition of Dubai
Design Week’s Abwab’s architectural exhibit, taking place this
month. Tara explains that it will consist of an “interactive wall
portraying the socio-political barriers in our society,” which will
mean a “psychological and physiological journey for visitors.”
Sisterhood
Tessa admits that in their early months as a duo, despite their close
relationship, “it was challenging to work together, because there
were no obstacles or boundaries established between us as sisters.”
She adds: “It took us a couple of years to understand and calibrate
the dynamics of our working duo and to establish healthy
boundaries to be inspired and productive.”
However, she says that their shared upbringing “helped us acquire
a similar way of thinking and adapting to certain situations, as we
lived through the same experiences.” The studio benefits from
integrating their distinct interests outside building design – Tara’s
passion being films and photography,” Tessa’s being “social and
humanitarian practices.”
When defining a concept for projects, they brainstorm separately,
then present the ideas to each other. They then interrogate these
collaboratively, and “bounce back and forth our inspirations and
drawings until we are both ready to present it to our clients,” says
Tessa. Tara adds: “It is interesting to observe how two different
inspirations can merge into one solid idea.”
They are both constantly travelling, whether separately or
together, “experiencing diverse surroundings and getting inspired,”
says Tara. Their familial mixture of Polish and Lebanese cultures, as
well as the mix of western and Arabic culture in their home city of
Beirut, helps them be “conscious of hybridity” – they say these
notions are “at the core of each project we undertake.”
The pair say that creating their recent street ‘interventions’ in
Beirut raised interesting issues, in terms of how such projects need to
accept how people may want to use designs, but their experience of
the city gave them resilience. “People are constantly surprising us
with new ways of using our designs,” says Tessa. “It is fascinating
for us to observe them appropriate the objects according to their
understandings, identities and ways of living.”
She says that despite encountering “various difficulties” in the
installation, “growing up in a country in constant resilience, we
learned how to acknowledge any obstacle and transform it to our
advantage.” The best reward, Tessa adds, was “seeing how different
people interact diversely with the installations, bringing them to life
and giving more meaning to them. It’s all about creating designs that
trigger citizens with a feeling of joy, freedom and playfulness.”Recent works
The practice’s latest project is a small restaurant and grocery called
Adar in the historic Passage de Panoramas located in Paris’ 2nd
arrondisement. The sisters “looked to demonstrate new and
evolved ways of expressing culture in a Middle Eastern restaurant
without falling into clichés of orientalism and grandiosity,”
instead representing it through “scents, colours, touch, filtered
light, and taste.”
They were inspired by the “raw colours of the landscape,”
and key features included a central corrugated mesh chandelier
containing dried spices, vegetables and flowers, evoking a
souk, and a terracotta open kitchen which turns cooking into
a “performance.”
Another representative project is ‘Lost in Transition,’ a “fictional
sculpture” inviting Beirut’s citizens to use constructions comprising
metal seats connected by an arch. Together with stools these can be
used in various configurations, from eating lunch to reading alone,
and are accompanied by a film directed by Ely Dagher (nominated
for an Architectural Film Award at this year’s Milano Design Film
Festival). The practice also created a ‘temporary nightclub’ which
can be mounted and dismantled in two hours, which was featured in
another film, by Mounia Akl.
Projects by T Sakhi sometimes employ humour to highlight social
issues, such as technology’s encroachment on our lives. Tessa gives
the example of the practice’s “transportable dining experience,
which satirically visualises society’s obsession with social media,”
whereas more “tragicomically,” says Tara, its Lebanese pavilion
references the “psychological walls” that they say dominate
Lebanese culture.
Product design is the final piece in the jigsaw that makes up this
highly creative firm’s work, and provides avenues to explore new
materials and ways of using them. It has seen the duo collaborating
with materials firms from Murano in Venice, to stone makers in
Cairo, to macramé and bejuco in Cancun.
As to the future, Tessa Sakhi gets the last word: “Our future goals
will be more focused on creating sustainable structures that use
innovative, recuperated and biodegradable materials.” The firm’s
doing this already however, such as in its pavilion currently on show
in Dubai, and is delivering the practical, diverse designs that enact
its strong ethos. ADAR
For Adar, a restaurant set in a historic Parisian district, T Sakhi wanted to represent
Middle Eastern culture through “scents, colours, materials and filtered light”
© Romain Bassenne
18INSIGHTSWWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK ADF NOVEMBER 2019
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