Salem Charabi smiles a lot. He smiles as he greets you, he smiles when asked a question and he smiles when answering. While doing so, he exposes a charming gap between his front teeth and makes grand hand gestures to illustrate his words. Here, the architect-cum-designer discusses utopian architecture, running your own studio and infusing a bit of where you’re from—in Charabi’s case, Egypt and Denmark—into the things that you create. When did you learn that you wanted to become an architect? I’ve always had a curiosity toward spaces and how they can make you feel a certain way. There’s a saying that you forget what people look like and you forget what people say but you never forget how they made you feel. Becoming an architect has been a search to both understand and ultimately provoke that type of spatial experience. This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty-One Buy Now Related Stories Design Interiors Issue 43 Vincent Van Duysen At home with the cult architect. Arts & Culture Design Issue 36 Alexis Sablone Not many architects skate for their country, and not many skateboarders design the parks they skate in. Design Issue 33 Archive: Roberto Burle Marx Buoyed by the bossa nova experimentalism of mid-century Brazil, an opera-loving landscape architect struck out against the diktats of cool modernism. Design Issue 32 Kengo Kuma Japan’s modest blockbuster architect. Design Interiors Studio David Thulstrup The Danish designer behind Noma’s new interiors. Design Partnerships The Line of Beauty A linear look at the PK4 lounge chair, in partnership with Fritz Hansen.
Arts & Culture Design Issue 36 Alexis Sablone Not many architects skate for their country, and not many skateboarders design the parks they skate in.
Design Issue 33 Archive: Roberto Burle Marx Buoyed by the bossa nova experimentalism of mid-century Brazil, an opera-loving landscape architect struck out against the diktats of cool modernism.
Design Partnerships The Line of Beauty A linear look at the PK4 lounge chair, in partnership with Fritz Hansen.
