During her first year studying interior architecture at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, Beirut-based Paola Sakr’s Introduction to Design professor told her a project pitch was entirely unfeasible. Trusting her instincts, she went with it anyway. “I didn’t back down, and my project was a success,” she says. The same professor later made a better recommendation: that she might be more suited for the product design department. “It ended up being the best choice I ever made,” Sakr says.
Two years after graduating, she founded her namesake firm in 2018, embracing natural, sustainable materials, including stone, clay, wood, wicker, and organic waste as her signature aesthetic. Consider her first product, Morning Ritual, a collection of biodegradable containers made of coffee grounds, newspaper waste, and a natural binding agent. “After that, the idea of sustainability never left my thinking process,” she says.
More recently, she’s designed a series of four molds to house maamoul (a traditional Arabic pastry) for Beirut restaurant Em Sherif. Together, the set forms “a puzzle-like cloud of maamoul, offering the option of four different flavors and stuffings per serving,” Sakr explains. “It was interesting to put design and gastronomy on the same table.”
Sakr hopes to expand into the global design scene but explains that “it has been an immense challenge working and projecting into the future while my country is going through a major revolution against its corrupt government. There are so many battles to be fought and so little mental energy left. It has tested our resilience.” Part of that strength is creating pieces that embody her home. “Objects have a spirit of their own—an energy we’ll be attracted to when we need to surround ourselves with it the most.”
Sakr reinterpreted pick-up sticks with Meg
Morning Ritual is a collection of biodegradable containers
Photography by Carl Halal and Paola Sakr
This article originally appeared in HD’s July 2020 issue.
