00:01Suheer Falconer's path to becoming a celebrated interior designer was anything but traditional.
00:08For years, she dedicated herself to the precise science of pharmacy,
00:13what led her to a global journey into soulful Zambian interiors.
00:18I wanted to start something new, something more creative and something fresh.
00:22What actually helped me move into the creative space was being stuck at home during COVID.
00:29I came across some blogs about architecture and design.
00:33Then I decided I'm going to study it and move into the sector, which I did.
00:39Ever since then, I got my degree. I started working straight away in the field.
00:47The trained pharmacist did more than just change discipline.
00:50She studied pharmacy in Belgium and then worked in the Lebanese hospitality industry.
00:55From there, she returned to Zambia to pursue her career as an interior designer.
01:00And what pushed it further on was when I came here to Zambia and I started seeing the construction world is actually booming in Zambia.
01:09This project was a very fun project to do.
01:12And it was a small apartment, a two bedroom apartment.
01:18And because it's a two bedroom apartment, we do it as an open plan space.
01:22You can see here that everything opens up towards each other where the three main areas,
01:27we have the kitchen, the dining space and the living space all open to each other.
01:32And what this does is that it creates a feeling of openness at the same time togetherness.
01:38And it really just gives it like a warm, welcoming family vibe type of place.
01:42Urbanization and a growing middle class in Zambia means that appreciation of interior design is also growing.
01:49What does this mean for the Zambian interior design landscape?
01:53Today's Zambian market is growing a lot.
01:57And this is thanks to everyone having more access to social media,
02:02where they can now see how other people around the world are creating their spaces,
02:08are decorating their spaces and are building them from scratch.
02:12For this current project that I'm working on,
02:15we are having a very minimal yet warm palette and aesthetics that we're using for the interior.
02:23How does she define her design style, which we use to gather diverse influences?
02:29The features about my design and the way I love to design are three things.
02:34The first is wood.
02:36Wood is one of my absolute favorite elements because it always brings in a lot of warmth into any space.
02:43Be it wooden floors, be it a wooden table, or be it anything that is wooden like accessories.
02:50The second thing that I like to bring into all of my designs is more of a philosophy.
02:55Simplicity is everything to me.
02:58When we design in a simple way, we're able to make the space feel more elegant and elevated,
03:04which means it gives us more space to play around with other things.
03:08For example, the materials that we use, the way that we arrange decor items,
03:14the lighting that we use, as well as all of the colors that we bring in.
03:19What I don't like to do is really following trends.
03:23When we use trendy designs and trendy things, they only tend to last for maybe four years, five years.
03:29And then we will see that it goes out of style.
03:32When Suheer Falconer gave up her promising career as a pharmacist and swapped it for interior design,
03:38she didn't know what to expect.
03:40Today, much of her planning goes into easing that burden for her clients.
03:45We are building our dream house and, of course, we've been very apprehensive about it.
03:51But one thing we've been lucky about is we have a very good team around us.
03:55Our contractor is amazing.
03:57Suheer, our interior designer, is so amazing.
04:00She's literally removed the stress, you know, out of building our dream house
04:06because I was so worried about the technical bits.
04:09Most of the floors and some of the walls, especially in the wet areas,
04:13are going to be like a concrete finish, a beautiful, beautiful concrete finish.
04:18What's nice about it is that it looks natural and they remind you of natural elements.
04:24So like these different colors over here.
04:27I would love my clients to walk into their home and to take a deep breath and say,
04:34this is a home I'm really, really going to love.
04:37I want them to feel that warmth.
04:39I want them to feel that it's welcoming and it's welcoming them
04:44and it's welcoming for their guests and for their friends and family.
04:48And because she has incorporated her global experience together with a great deal of creativity
04:54into her interior design, she seems to have struck a chord with her clients.
04:59She's gotta stop and stop the music.
05:01I'm so thankful to her as well.
05:02I want the talent to make her.
05:03My littleνοcious community is beautiful to be here in the next year.
05:04So it's like some music, the music and my初' artistic home,
05:05I want to be here.
05:06The music is, and you can talk to me, and you know,
05:08I want to be here to come out with myémnia.
05:09And I want to be here for a moment.
05:10I want to be here with my own design.
05:12I want to be here and let you see the background縁
05:14of this.
05:15I want to be here for a few minutes.
05:17I want to be here for a few minutes.
05:19I want to be here for a few minutes.
05:21I'll be held my last couple of years.
05:22I want to be here, and I want to be here to see the background.
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