< Previouscommercialinteriordesign.com October 2021 30 Karim Rashid Karim Rashid is recovering. Being Karim Rashid, he's doing it in style. The mani is still fl awless ("it's gel") and his two-metre-plus frame is lounging elegantly on a sofa in a restaurant at the JW Marriott Marquis in Business Bay, Dubai. It's not been 24 hours since he was guest speaker at the 15th annual Commercial Interior Design Awards and so the perfect time for us to ask if the night was a) spectacular or b) extremely spectacular. "It was actually very, very high energy and spirits. Great MC." That's Tom Urquhart, Dubai radio presenter and regular captain of proceedings at the CID Awards. The previous night saw Karim hand out the fi nal three gongs after delivering a keynote on future of our design driven world. Client journey Although he didn't judge at the CID Awards, Karim is no stranger to such a role and regularly sits on judging panels of design awards around the world. This is his take on what he sees and what he'd rather not see, delivered in his usual matter-of-fact style: "I have to be very frank, in fact I'm known for it," he deadpans. "What's unfair about judging interiors, which I always fi nd diffi cult is that you have to experience them, if they go inside them, live with them. But we live in this world of 2D where everything is judged so quickly by image." Karim is also keen for designers to take not only the end user, but the client, on a journey through design. "You know, sometimes I'm shocked because sometimes people send me a moodboard and they're shocking, because they're the kind of thing everyone else is doing. So I kind of steer away from the project and either I don't take the project or I try to educate. That is the hard part. Change the mentality of your client and push them and make them understand I think one major principle, the simple difference If you can explain to them that, hey, oh, you're doing a cafe or restaurant or hospital, let's not do every day." Defi ning luxury As per his Instagram, Karim spent some of lockdown perfecting his dance moves and leading his followers through work-out routines, delivered in his signature bright pink and white outfi ts and to pumping house music. When asked, what defi nes luxury, a quality that the UAE excels at delivering in design, his thoughts refl ect the desires of the nervous early months of the Covid pandemic, where all our worlds became much smaller. "When we use the word luxury, we think of analogue and the 20th century, but 21st century luxury is freedom or free time. Or it's the fact that you are not what you were put on this earth to do. Naturally, that's The CID Awards was very high energy... MIC DROP Quotes from Karim Rashid, our speaker at 2021's Commercial Interior Design Awards31 October 2021 commercialinteriordesign.com Karim Rashid called luxury. You know, I was in a hotel in Shanghai, and I'm on the 19th fl oor. And my hallway had so much stone and marble. And I was thinking, 100 fl oors, slabs of stone and marble, that's not the way to build a building, because you're actually now making it fi ve times heavier than it needs to really be." A sense of stuff What he's not – Karim is not a minimalist. But despite being a designer with many products in his portfolio, he says h's not big on 'stuff.' "I have very little; I have a wardrobe like smaller than that couch behind you and it's very simple. And I don't want a lot of things. So when I do have things, for example, I have maybe 20 rings, because I love rings. Every one of those I can remember the city I bought it and they have meaning. I have a radio that I had when I was a seven-year-old child and that's beautiful. And it was the kind you wear around your wrist, Panasonic. So I kept some nice objects. And now these things are powerful to me. But I won't get anything new into my environment; I have a rule of addition, by subtraction by bringing something in, I have to get rid of something else. "That stuff gave us some sense of immortality. It's like the pharaohs; they buried themselves with a lot of gold, and they thought they would live forever, or they would have that gold forever. But I think the digital age is a breakthrough because we realise how ethereal and ephemeral our existence is, and how temporary. We're bombarded in a sense with the notion of time now, so we're hyper aware of it. Facebook tells you every minute there's a memory from fi ve years ago, from 10 years ago. When you have 20,000 pictures on your phone, you can go through memories and have hundreds of videos of your children." Among stuff Karim perhaps doesn't have in his home – he's been quoted as saying that he hadn't read a design magazine for nine months, but we still want to thank him in print for being a superb guest speaker at the Commercial Interior Design Awards.commercialinteriordesign.com October 2021 32 #CIDAWARDS2021 SPONSORS & PARTNERS THANKS TO ALL OURGOLD SPONSORCATEGORY SPONSOR SILVER SPONSORSILVER SPONSORCATEGORY SPONSOR FIT-OUT PARTNERSILVER SPONSORCATEGORY SPONSOR CREATIVE SOLUTIONS PARTNER commercialinteriordesign.com/events/cid-awards WELL DONE! CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE WINNERS AT THE COMMERCIAL INTERIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2021 #CIDAWARDS CID Awards'21_House Ad_WELL DONE.indd 1CID Awards'21_House Ad_WELL DONE.indd 129/09/2021 11:58:3629/09/2021 11:58:36First look commercialinteriordesign.com October 2021 34 Im ages :St u d io E MFirst look 35 October 2021 commercialinteriordesign.com Five years in the making, Studio EM can fi nally unveil the eclectic and eco-friendly street food kitchen experience in the Kenyan capital HERE'S NSK ICYMIFirst look commercialinteriordesign.com October 2021 36 The overall project is absolutely stunning... The re-purposed VW Dubai-based multidisciplinary studio and Commercial Interior Design Awards fi nalist, Studio EM, recently delivered its latest mega project, Nairobi Street Kitchen, in Nairobi, Kenya. The opening comes nearly fi ve years since CID fi rst covered Studio EM winning the project on a former abandoned mixed use development based in the Westland's area of Kenyan capital. The space is now home to NSK, a thriving hub of activity attracting foodies, artists and families to its upcycled interiors. Touted by fans as one of Nairobi's "most Instagrammable projects" NSK is home to 11 brands and concepts that were designed and created by Studio EM's interiors and branding teams, as well as co-founders and siblings Alyana and Alyssa Popat of Simba Corp. Taking inspiration from food markets and street food concepts from over the globe, NSK is a pleasing assault on the senses, from the food on offer to the thriving and bustling environment created and adorned by gorgeous murals and art works created by local artists from the city. The restaurant concepts take visitors on a gastronomic tour around the world and include Mexican street food served out of a chopped-up VW Winnebago; an Indian restaurant inside a disused Leyland bus; a BBQ smokehouse; pizzeria; chicken joint and a sweet truck, as well as a roof top bar. There's also Nood, a cheeky Singaporean noodle stall and Butter'd Buns, which creates burgers. Anchor outlet Spilt Milk is the all-day café and for harder beverages, there's the Library 68 wine bar. Emma Stinson, Studio EM co-founder and recently highly commended winner at the CID Awards 2021 for interior designer of the year, says: "NSK has been a real labour of love, I remember how excited and over the moon we were when were awarded the project, I experienced the exact same feeling when it was fi nally unveiled. Whilst a few concepts or ideas have changed since the original concept, as would be expected over such a time period, the overall project is absolutely First look 37 October 2021 commercialinteriordesign.com A street art-inspired mural Take a seat at Library bar stunning and I love it, the Kenyan team headed up by Alyssa and Alyana have done an awesome job in delivering the project. I love how we got to use so many reclaimed and recycled materials in such a large space as well as how the client really involved the local community in the development of the space. East Africa really is booming in terms of design and NSK now stands as one of the fl ag bearers for large scale independent projects in the region and that's what I think we are all most proud of – that and rescuing an old derelict building that could easily have been bulldozed." NSK co-founder Alyana Popat adds: "Nairobi Street Kitchen is the fi rst project of its kind in East Africa and Alyssa and I have been working to bring our vision to life for the past fi ve years. We are delighted to have been afforded the opportunity to join a community of people at the forefront of building the continent's food and beverage industry, whilst also introducing a novel style of dining to Kenya, our fellow Nairobians, and those visiting from afar. We were excited to bring on design partners that could help turn our ideas and visions into reality. When we fi rst started, we met a lot of design experts, but it was the Studio EM team with whom we felt the most chemistry. Without their attention to detail, creativity and implementation of our vision, NSK would not be what it is today." Funky bathroomsSpecial Report commercialinteriordesign.com Month 2021 38 FRESH FACE Checking in to a new era as hotel design undergoes mind- blowing changes SPECIAL REPORTSpecial Report 39 Month 2021 commercialinteriordesign.com PAGE 40 Prospect Design creates a minimalistic resort on the West African coast PAGE 42 Hospitality specialist Govind Shepley on why it's time for a travel revolution PAGE 44 DZ Design unveils its sustainable refurbishment of Citymax Business Bay PAGE 46 Jacqueline Craft, senior designer at LW, on the trends behind a seamless hotel design PAGE 48 How RSP helped add magic to Expo 2020, by hospitality lead Ralf Steinhauer Im ages :D Z D es ig n HOTELS The pool deck at Citymax Business BayNext >