Caroline + Sabri Farouki

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I am here with Caroline and Sabri from Farouki Farouki. Thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Caroline Farouki: Great. Thanks so much for having us.

SSR: Okay, so we always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? And maybe Caroline, we’ll start with you.

CF: I grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, so Southwest Louisiana, the heart of Cajun country.

SSR: Amazing. And what were you like as a kid? 

CF: I was typical type A nerd, but big soccer player, captain of the soccer team, travel soccer, and just straight A student, total perfectionist. And yeah, those traits I think have not left me as much as I wish they had, but I had a wonderful childhood. It’s a great place to grow up.

SSR: Any inkling that design would be your career? Were you creative or were you influenced by anything?

CF: Yeah, definitely. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an amazing house designed by A. Hays Town, which if you’re not from Louisiana, you might not know who that is, but he was a pioneer in reusing materials. So the house I grew up in had reused bricks and reused timber, and it definitely was inside outside living. And I think both my parents loved collecting antiques, so a lot of my childhood memories are coming to New Orleans and shopping in all these French antique stores. So I think it was both of my parents, even though neither one of them are designers, they both love architecture and interiors. And so I was definitely around it, and my best childhood memories are making tents or pretend vet hospitals with my sister. And then I guess it was middle school, I took over my brother’s room and my parents let me decorate it. And it was the funnest thing ever. I definitely was surrounded by it and was interested in it from an early age.

SSR: Did you end up going to school for design?

CF: Yes. So I went to college and I studied architecture for undergrad. And about three quarters of the way through the program I realized, or I started questioning if it was right for me. Some of architecture school can be really technical and I was missing, I wanted to talk about lighting and materials and it was way more technical at times than that, and just so intense. So I ended up switching to environmental studies because I always had an interest in the environment, more of the sustainability aspect of it. So my actual undergrad degree is in environmental studies with a minor in architecture, even though I spent more time in architecture than environmental studies.

SSR: You kept both of them?

CF: Yes, yes. And then I went back to school for interior design. I went to Savannah College of Art and Design for Masters of Fine Arts in Interior Design after undergrad. Yeah.

SSR: Amazing. Okay, so Sabri, let’s go with you. Turn it over to you. Where did you grow up?

Sabri Farouki: I’m a bit of a weird one. It’s all over the place. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My dad is in oil, so my dad is British with Palestinian heritage, which is what the Arabic name is from. My mom is Polish, super Polish, to this day, sounds very Polish. People ask, where are you from? And she always says from Poland, but I was first generation American, born in Tulsa where my dad was for oil, so I just kind of grew up this American kid in Tulsa, Oklahoma with immigrant mom and dad. They eventually got their citizenship, and then we were all a happy American family. So that’s where I started. And then when I was a little bit older also for my dad’s work, we moved to Egypt where I lived for all of middle school and high school.

SSR: That’s cool.

SF: I went to a really cool American school, yeah. It was very cool. There were lots of other oil families and embassy families and international kids, so I was kind of this oil kid that moved around a bit. And yeah, that’s kind of how I started.

SSR: Yeah. Were you creative or any kind of early inclination from your end?

SF: I would say the art classes really started to become a thing that I enjoyed in middle school and high school, so maybe not so early. I think when I was really young growing up in Tulsa, it was Legos and forts and playing outside and things. Neither of my parents are particularly art inclined, so there wasn’t a lot of that around. But yeah, it was really more through school I think. And then in high school, we had an elective that was drafting. We started with hand drafting machine and kind of a double-sided ruler thing that you could rotate. So strictly just as a cool thing to learn, we had that as an elective in Cairo. And I took it, and then took AutoCAD. Again, not really about design, but more just another form of art in a way that was offered at our school.

SSR: And how did your time in Egypt, and did you guys travel over there as well? How has that influenced you and do you see that coming through in some of your work?

SF: Yeah. Yes, we traveled a lot. It was great. Whether it was for school sports and things, we got to travel places or just my family would use living abroad as a little place to get to Europe or other places in the Middle East. Yeah, we did travel a lot. I think the way I guess it’s probably influenced me or us is just maybe just a really open mind about what a building can be or what a restaurant can look like or what a shop is. It wasn’t just like if I had just stayed in Tulsa my whole life or we were in Houston for a little bit too, it would’ve been, well, a store is the Galleria or a house is like a Houston house. But I think when you get out of a place like that and you’re in the Middle East or you’re in Europe, or I think you realize that a home is lots of different things. And a shop could be a souk or a market, and it’s not just a shopping mall. So yeah, it’s probably the simplest way to explain how living abroad affected our design.

SSR: And then you came back to the states for school?

SF: We had college counselors, just like a private school in the U.S., and they told us about all the different American schools. And so yeah, the majority of Americans at that American school came back to the U.S. for school, and so did some other international students that kind of piggybacked and came to American schools too. And then at school is actually where Caroline and I met in St. Louis.

SSR: Now I see. Okay, now it makes sense. Okay, I got it. All right. So you’re in St. Louis, and then also you did Columbia University too?

SF: Yes. Yeah. After Washington University, when Caroline went to SCAD, I went to Columbia for my master’s in architecture.

SSR: Long distance relationship.

CF: Yeah. And we’ve left out a scandalous part that Sabri was my first architecture TA, so I was a freshman and he was a senior. He was dating somebody else, and we didn’t start dating until five years later.

SSR: So you knew each other and then got together later?

CF: Yeah. So when I was a freshman, all the freshmen had a big crush on him. He was the sweet quiet guy, and he made me and one of my friends a mixtape. That was the biggest deal. It had Moby and all these other cool drawing jams on it, so that’s where it began.

SSR: I was having a conversation the other day of how much we miss mixtapes and how much time we used to spend. Why did we give this mixtapes CD to Caroline and this other woman?

SF: It really was, I think innocent about this drawing class. We had a great professor. I had him and then Caroline had him three years later who just really inspired us to think about how to draw what we were drawing and just made a really cool vibe in the class when we would do whatever we were working on. And I was his TA, I think at the time. And so it was sort of to say, Hey, these are all the jams that we’re listening to in Bob’s class. Keep it up. You guys are doing great in class here. If you want to listen to this music when you’re drawing in your dorm room, here’s the CD of it.

CF: We totally read into it differently, just FYI. Nobody’s ever asked Sabri that.

SSR: He’s really going to kill me.

SF: Honestly. I do remember specifically why I made this big CD for you guys, but you were some of the best students in the class for sure.

SSR: I love this. Okay, you went to Columbia University, and then you both went to New York and worked at different firms. So Caroline, you’re at Pompeii and AvroKO, right?

CF: That’s right. Yeah, right out of school. I really wanted to be in New York, and Sabri had actually tried out Seattle for six or eight months before I graduated, but it was the recession of, I guess, when was that Sabri? You moved there in 2009. And not to put words in your mouth, but it was just impossible for him to get a job out there. No, architecture firm was hiring, and yet Home Depot also wouldn’t hire him because he was overqualified with a graduate degree from Columbia. So he thankfully wanted to move back to New York when I was graduating, and I really wanted to move there as well. So I just kind of networked, sent out a ton of applications and landed at Pompei A.D. That was my first job up there.

SSR:  And what did you learn from both of those firms? I mean, they’re both doing really innovative work and so I’m guessing you touched retail and F&B and all those kind of things.

CF: Yeah, so I started, right, Pompei A.D. I mean it’s not really around anymore, but they did some incredible work with Anthropology and Urban Outfitters, right at their conception. So Ron Pompei was an amazing person to learn from, but essentially after working there for a few years, both Sabri and I were feeling kind of burnt out of our jobs. And we actually took six months off. His parents were living in Singapore at the time, and we were pre kids, such an easy time, late twenties to be able to just take off and travel for six months throughout Southeast Asia.

And as we were traveling around there, we were both so inspired by design over there. I think what Sabri was talking about growing up in Egypt, having a lot more freedom of thought about what a house is or what a shop is, when you’re in Singapore, it’s like, holy cow, they really reach here in design. And so I did a ton of sketching and at the end of my time there, I really wanted to work at AvroKO. Since graduating, I really wanted to work there. And so I sent them my sketchbook, and I think that was different enough to catch their attention. And I actually interviewed at their Bangkok office.

And basically, got the job in New York because I had interviewed in Bangkok. And I just adored working there. They have incredible projects. The leadership is really great. The team itself is amazing, and I learned so much from concept through construction documents. It really was a dream job. But we had our first child up in New York and just decided working long hours and a long commute, we wanted to spend more time with him, and that’s what drove us to move home.

SSR: Before we get to moving home and launching your firm, Sabri, talk a little bit about your career. You worked at some incredible firms as well, Diller Scofidio and Bjarke Ingels. So talk about what you learned from that and some of your key lessons or takeaways.

SF: Yeah, I just feel so fortunate having gone to Columbia and being in New York, just exposed a lot of us to these opportunities to intern early on or to meet some professors at some of these amazing renowned New York firms. And for me, the first one was Sharp Architects, and that was just by way of someone who I was TA for who knew the principals really well, they were looking for someone for the summer. So I spent a summer when I was still at Columbia interning there, ended up working there full-time afterwards. And then later on, like you mentioned, a good friend was at Diller Scofidio and Renfro. And so I ended up taking a job there, and then, yeah, later, a few years after that, Bjarke Ingels Group.

So in a way it wasn’t planned at all, but in hindsight, it’s this crazy trifecta, at least for me, of my interests of these celebrity firms. I learned something different at each of them, but the thing that I took away from all of them I think is just to always challenge ourselves to think differently, to think about architecture and design differently, to do something new, to do something innovative. And it doesn’t have to be always… Our work isn’t I think necessarily as avant-garde or innovative always as some of those firms try to be, but we at least always try to have some part of it, which is kind of new or rethinking something. And I think that’s the main thing I took away from that is don’t just settle for what people expect or what people think design is.

SSR: Love it. All right, so you had your first baby, you move home, and so then you decided to launch your own firm. Did you have an idea of what you wanted to create or like you said, was it a necessity or something you guys had been talking about?

CF: Okay, so prior to starting our firm, we had only worked on one thing together, which was this tiny competition to design the backdrop of a fashion show at SCAD. And we didn’t even win it. Yeah, I don’t know where we got the confidence to think that it was going to work, but I think Sabri is a really independent minded person and I think being an entrepreneur is in his blood or it’s just what he needs to do. I’m definitely the more safe person. If it wasn’t for him, I never would’ve started our own thing, but I think probably starting our own firm was probably the only way to get him to move to Louisiana. So it was a good balance between, okay, I’ll give you starting a firm together, which was really scary to me if you’ll move to Louisiana.

And so we tried to do a little bit of networking when the idea first started, and there was one developer that we were introduced to down in New Orleans who had actually recently moved from New York, and we just had some mutual friends and connections. And we hit it off with him, and he basically had a little bit of work to give us right when we moved down here and we just started hustling.

I had 50 coffees the first month that we moved down here, but we really just decided we want to be in New Orleans and we want to try to start our own firm. And within two weeks, we made the decision to leave. AvroKO was asking me: Do you want the same desk that you had when you come back in two weeks? And then all of a sudden I was like, we’re going to move.

SF: I was going to say as commonly used as it is, if there was a slogan for our thinking when we came down here, it was big fish, small pond. For those couple years, I think it could have been tattooed on our foreheads that that was our mentality is that we were going to tell everyone that we could where we worked and that we were in New York and we were at SCAD and we were at AvroKO. Without being too showy about it, we were trying to leverage it.

And I think to the right people who maybe were also ex-New York expats or ex-LA expats who saw design a little bit differently and thought a little bit differently than maybe was really common here, I think it really resonated. And they said, okay, I’m a developer and I just moved here from this place, and I’m trying to do something a little extra with my projects. Well, these two will get it because they had this experience. And so I think that was our strategy. And I think even to this day, I think it still kind of makes sense to certain people. It’s like, okay, they’ll probably get it. All the places they’ve been and the places they’ve worked, I think that. Yeah. Does that make sense? Big fish, small pond. Yeah.

SSR: Yeah, 100%. It makes complete sense. And I think maybe that made it easier too to jump?

CF: We asked ourselves if we were to move down there, who would we want to work for? And there are some really great firms here, but just nobody that was doing the kind of work that we wanted to do, or at least that I wanted to do, hospitality as a number one focus. And our project started really small at first, probably the first six months we were making $2,000 billable. But the way that our firm has grown has really been organic in that we got a small restaurant here in New Orleans and they had a low budget, but we sunk it into this really cool one wall in the restaurant, and that got us a lot of attention. And it just spread by word of mouth that chef recommended us to somebody else. And so it’s been a really wonderful slow, organic growth trajectory.

SSR: Is there something you wish you’d know then that you know now, or was ignorance kind of bliss?

SF: I think it’s pretty easy to think back to the size that we thought we could be or wanted to be. And I think year one it was like, oh, I bet in five years we could be 20 people or 30 people. I think we thought a lot about how big of an office we wanted to be, and I think we compared it a lot to our past offices.

And I think the places I had worked, it’s funny, each one of them, of the three, I was at them for a big expansion, kind of a big growing period and saw them become big studios, whereas they were maybe smaller before. This is just to say that I think because of that, we both agreed we didn’t want to be some massive thing. And I think Caroline too had seen AvroKO at its size, but I think we were still saying, oh, maybe we’ll be like an office of 30 people or something. But I think now we’re both, we’re very happy being very small. That’s one thing that I think we feel differently about now than we did then. I don’t know that… Yeah.

CF: I’m trying to think of if I could teach us something back then. I feel like it’s taken a few years to figure out how to work together as a couple. We’re parents, we own a business together and we’re married, and that’s a lot to figure out. And it’s taken a long time and I wish I could have just been like, hey, Caroline, think about X, Y, and Z from the beginning instead of struggling through the hardest parts of working together with your spouse.

SSR: I know. Does it ever shut off? Do you ever have to say we’re going to leave business at business and come home and be there?

CF: Yeah, we’re really good about that. I think very early on, as soon as we had an office outside of our house, I think we realized early that we have to. When we leave the office, do not talk about work. Our focus is on us and it’s on the kids, and we got to leave everything at work. And thankfully, we were totally on the same page about that because it would take over our lives, the stress of it would.

SSR: Do you, Sabri, do more architecture and Caroline, you do more interior design or how do you guys kind of separate? And then I’m going to ask you, Caroline, what is Sabri good at and vice versa. What are your strengths and weaknesses if you want?

SF: That definitely was the plan from day one was that we would have both architecture and interiors projects, and ideally we would have both. We would have full service. It took a while for that to happen, but it did happen and we’re super proud of it. A few years ago, the same developer who Caroline mentioned, who is part of the reason we’re down here, brought us on to do a 40-key ground up boutique hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, which is our main historic thoroughfare here.

So that was what I at least had been waiting for. So we did the building, and then Caroline did her magic on the interiors. And then what’s really nice is Caroline, while I’m looking at the facade and the massing of the thing and the fenestration and the columns and the arcade, Caroline’s definitely there as a sounding board for all that. And then when we go on the inside, I’m doing my part. She’s leading the interiors that I’m a sounding board for her. And then would you agree, Caroline, when we have strictly an interiors project… Caroline, why don’t you explain how that works?

CF: I’m definitely leading the interior design. I’m very heavy-handed in concept through design development, and Sabri is definitely there as a sounding board and big picture ideation. And he’s really good about pushing us to be more innovative or to think about the spaces more architecturally, not just materials, furniture, and lighting. But then I basically hand it off at the end of design development. All of our projects are designed in Rhino and so by the end of design development, we should have everything “designed.” And Sabri is detailing and documenting it and coordinating with all the consultants. He’s really acting as the architect at that point, and I’m handing it off to him. And then I’m kind of in spec world along with our team.

SSR: You said you’re small, but how big?

CF: There are four of us, including us.

SSR: That’s great though. Nimble?

CF: The biggest we’ve been is six, and even at six we decided it’s more managing than designing. And we want it to be designing more than managing.

SF: Our goal is basically to produce, whether it’s the design presentation or CDs, and not let anybody know and have it be like, oh, well this is 100 page, 100 sheets set for this drawing for this thing. It’s like, oh, well probably there’s a project manager and a few interns. And it’s like, no, we just banged that out ourselves.

There’s something super efficient about it, which is a little bit of a lesson learned I think from my past. I don’t know if Caroline would agree, but some of the things that I would see in New York where you have these whopper fees, probably like tens of millions of dollars for projects and they can afford all these different levels of people, but it could be potentially really inefficient. Lots of ideas, good ideas were being wasted and things were being changed, and time wasn’t always being spent super well. So there’s something nice about being efficient.

SSR: Well, and developers get you, right? So you’re not passing it down. I hear that a lot that the biggest problem is when you get wooed by a principal, and then you get a team and that principal falls off and you’re like, wait, the wooing is gone or why you went there is no longer a part of your project, which not all firms, but it’s nice that they get you. Okay, so back to you two. So Caroline, what is Sabri’s greatest strength and then vice versa?

CF: I think his greatest strength is number one, pushing us. I kind of mentioned this already, but number one, pushing us to be more innovative and to think about spaces architecturally and not just as a series of flat planes with beautiful finishes and furniture. And then on the more technical side, I think he knows how to execute a project to a level of detail where it just sings. And it’s one of those things where a design could be executed without that eye of detail and just be like an okay project, or it could be executed with Sabri’s level of detail and it’s amazing. And it’s those little things that he catches and he cares about that make it just so much more beautiful than if I had detailed it.

SSR: All right, Sabri, you’re up.

SF: Caroline has many amazing attributes. I would say Caroline sees space and design. I think she’s able to see many different layers of things all at the same time, whether it’s tone, color, light, softness, focal point, I don’t know, any number of things that could suss out what’s working, what’s not working in a way that at least my mind doesn’t. I think she can kind of pretty quickly say, this is why this feels good, or this would make this feel good. I think she’s able to see it all separately, and then put it all together in a really unique way.

A little bit more specific to that, and it’s just a really unique part of our process is Caroline’s also a beautiful drawer and it’s a big part of our SD presentation is Caroline’s hand sketches, which are a really kind of pivotal point in the process where you could start to freak a client out because you could start to get a little bit too real and they could start to get nervous, and Caroline’s drawings at that stage in our process, I think really secure a level of trust and bring a lot of joy into the design process. So kind of a holistic way of seeing space, and then a very specific technical thing. Caroline has, I think are two of her best assets.

SSR: I love that because I feel like the art of drawing has been lost a little bit, right? Technology.

SF: Yeah. I think both of us are obsessed about drawing, actually, whether it’s Caroline’s perspectives or I have a running list, I don’t really, but every time someone says who drew this? These are really beautiful details. I’ll always look at Carolina and smile. Yeah, even if it’s a lighting fabricator who needs to understand a custom chandelier, I’m obsessing. There’s a very old school way of thinking as an architecture student, but there’s five different line weights in this drawing of this chandelier, which is going to show this fabricator that this material is in front of this material or this is for seating. I think I really do believe that that kind of obsession leads to him understanding it better and leads to him making a better product.

SSR: So you mentioned the Hotel Henrietta, which was the culmination of doing architecture and interiors, which is beautiful. Was there one project that was your big break or helped you to get your firm to where you wanted it to be or get to even this project that was both?

CF: Yeah. I think the Hotel Indigo in Grand Cayman is a giant one for us. It actually opened at the same time as Hotel Henrietta, but we started that project in March of 2020, which was the beginning of COVID, and it really kept us excited and invigorated through COVID, but it opened the door to a ton of work in the Caribbean with that one client who just keeps giving us amazing project after amazing project.

And we’re also doing a project in Mexico with somebody else. And I think just having the work in the Caribbean gives people a level of comfort that you understand humidity and heat and outdoors, and it’s definitely become a space that we are very excited and comfortable in. And also the scale of Hotel Indigo was giant. It was like 280-keys, or at least giant for us, 280-keys plus several different F&B venues and lobby, pool deck, pool bar. So to be able to prove to people that we’re a tiny firm, but we can do really big projects at a high level has really helped us.

SSR: Yeah, must have been crazy for your small team to have two openings at the same time.

CF: Yes. That was a very stressful April of 2024.

SSR: Crazy, crazy. Okay, I love that. Is there one project on the boards that you guys are really excited about? I know it’s hard to pick your favorite child, but you probably can.

CF: Okay. Let me think. I’d be curious, Sabri, what you would say. Let me think. I’m actually really excited about, we’re redoing the spa at the Kimpton in Grand Cayman, and I’m really excited about it. The scope is quite small. We’re basically redoing the lobby and a nail salon and a hair salon and then just some little refreshes throughout. But I really love what we did with the existing space, and I think it’s also proven to me that it’s really good for the environment to not just start from scratch everywhere and to be just as excited about a renovation as I am about a new build. Yeah, I’m really excited about that. Sabri, what about you? What’s your favorite current project right now? You’re on mute.

SF: Yeah, I was trying. I don’t know how much to mention the brand or not mention the brand. So I’ll mention it, Stacy, and then you use your expertise in the field whether or not you want to edit it out. But Caroline, for me, it would be the Kimpton St. Louis. We’re doing just the restaurant, just the specialty restaurant at a new Kimpton St. Louis. The restaurant’s on the second floor. And so we thought a lot and a lot about how to make it really compelling from the street and it’s got this amazing, if we can pull it off and it makes it all the way, this really cool vaulted ceiling that I think back to the architectural thinking on interiors projects, I think that one is going to feel really… I think it has the potential to be really iconic and to really be striking so yeah.

SSR: That’s where I met you guys with Ave on the show.

CF: Yes, yes, that’s right.

SSR: I was like it’s going to come to me.

SF: Caroline didn’t mention that, but what she was mentioning how fortunate we were to get to know the owner of Indigo. We were also super fortunate because even though it’s an Indigo, Ave had a relationship with them because they had done a Kimpton across the street. And so, she was kind of pulled in with the Indigo team work on this Indigo project. So we got to know her, and then she’s kind of pulled us into a couple other things.

SSR: Yeah. We’re talking about Ave Bradley of IHG Hotels for those listening. But she’s an amazing champion of designers, so that’s awesome. So is there still a project you would love to do or something like on your bucket list, wish list?

CF: Yes, we would love, this is a dream of mine. I love camping, but more cabins than actual tents. And I would love to work on a sustainable resort that is in a beautiful location like in the mountains or on Cape Cod, but really create a resort that brings families together in a way that’s super indoor, outdoor and also accessible to people who live on an income level similar to ours. We’re so fortunate to get to work on some really high-end projects. I mean, not that we have a ton of luxury work, but I mean we’re working on a few restaurants with Four Seasons, which has been really fun. But to get to work on projects that designers could afford to stay in and do a really good job and create. Sorry, I’m not saying this very elegantly, but essentially an eco resort that feels higher design than just what you would expect with a crunchy granola eco resort. That would be my dream project. Sabri, what about you?

SF: I can get behind that. I can get behind that vision.

SSR: And then the other question too, is your house constantly being redesigned and tinkered? I feel like you two coming home moving, are you looking at it differently?

CF: Yeah. Our house is tiny and we built it about four years ago, and we love it and it’s so clean and simple that there really isn’t much we have to change. I’m sitting in our bedroom, and there is just not much you could do. It’s like the size of a New York apartment. So although you would think we would constantly change stuff, we actually have not changed gnarly anything since moving in. But I think maybe the major problem is that we’re always thinking about, okay, well what’s our next house going to be? Where can we build it? But New Orleans has so few lots that I think it squashes our dreams pretty quickly.

SSR: So I hate to end the conversation, but we always end the podcast with the question that is the title of our podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way? I know Sabri, you mentioned one from your other past life, but maybe one that you’ve learned while in the past 10 years.

CF: I think my greatest takeaway is that the joy of designing has just as much to do with the people that you’re working with. It’s not just about the work, the project that you’re creating, but it’s just as much about who you’re working with on the owner, the operator side. Had you asked me 10 years ago, probably should have answered your question a little differently when you asked what’s our dream project, it really has just as much to do with working with kind, ambitious, exciting people as it does the actual project parameters and program. So that would definitely be my biggest lesson. Sabri, what about you?

SF: I would say it’s similar in the theme of it’s not about technical stuff that I’ve learned, but it’s about the people, which is that it is such a collaboration. And I like to remind ourselves that it’s important to be the artists that needs to get what they want for the sake of design, but it’s also important to compromise and to listen and that just as much as you feel like you have ownership over the project, so does the brand or so does the developer. And yeah, so we really just all have to work together. And that’s I think, where the real joy comes from.

SSR: Thank you. And hope to see you both in real life soon.

CF: Thanks so much, Stacy.