Design Ties

I consider myself biracial. My ethnicity is muddled with the very traditional south Asian world and a more free European world. My father is Punjabi and grew up in Pakistan; my mother is half Turkish and half Kurdish growing up in the outskirts of Iraq. Both have their traditions and cultures, however neither have anything in common. I spent 11 years of my childhood in Pakistan; these are my roots my childhood filled with colorful images and emotions. My family and I immigrated to Toronto, Canada; here I spent 11 more years of my adolescent life. Toronto was very much a shock, I felt as if I was transported instantly into a world I had never met, one minute I was home in Pakistan enjoying the summer rains, the canal I drove past every day and the familiarity of my home, and the next I am in a city that hadn’t even noticed my arrival. Toronto is a busy city lined with closely packed buildings, alluring alleys and streets painted in fun colors (my first introduction to graffiti). When I think about it now, Toronto evoked my understanding of design, starting with scale; I was so tiny in such a large city. Walking from a narrow and long alley with the sides of these buildings towering over me showing only a slip of the sky above and just the hope of what’s to come in the clearing, finally opening up revealing a wide and busy street. The city was a very interesting experience; I never thought I would ever see beauty in it, but I did. I learned a lot from it, I learned what worked and why certain things were done the way they were, I also learned what didn’t work and what, if I had my hand in it, would I change. A city can be many things, and this is the same for interior design, it’s hard to summarize it in a sentence or paragraph, interior design is many things, it is essential. We create order in a built environment that helps us escape the disordered natural environment; we bring function to improve the quality of life; interior design is everything and everywhere, a language, a tool, a way of expression,  it is a way of being; for me it is, there for I am.