A breath of freshness to interior design and architecture in Saudi Arabia is what we felt once we walked into Urban Living’s office. We met Jumana Shawli the founder and managing director of the company to talk about their new take on our habitat, by living in a contemporary, modern, healthy surroundings.

What’s Up: What made you get into interior design and architecture in the first place?

Jumana Shawli: I have always had a passion for art and design, so when time came to pick a major in college I chose to study interior architecture in New England School of Art and Design, Boston (U.S.A). After graduating I returned to Saudi Arabia, and worked in a company that was starting a new interior design division, and they put me in charge of handling that task, so I went through the entire process. Since I was assigned with a budget, and all the power I needed to hire and create teams, I had to handle the whole project from A to Z. After I was done, I managed to secure a good deal, creating a department that had its own project. I thought, “I can do that on my own, since I have already done it.” Basically I thought of the whole experience as a sandbox experiment to explore my capabilities. I wanted to have my own firm so I resigned to give birth to Urban Living.

WU: Did starting your own firm feel the same?

JS: I started at home as a freelancer, after finishing my first three projects I earned enough to open an office and go full fledge by hiring my own employees. When I was at home, I was working alone, I didn’t have any employees, but when I moved to this office, I hired two more people an interior designer, and an administrator. Now we have teams and more employees working under Urban Living.

WU: Why did you pick the name Urban Living for your company?

JS: Urban, is a word that gives the impression of urbanism and modern cities, metropolitans if you will, and it is something I picked up from living in London, New York, and Boston, where all these cities are urban metropolitans, everything is polished and solid. On the other hand you want some greenery, some landscapes, you need something living, so the name Urban Living is a way of combining the two when we design for clients by giving them a polished contemporary space that they can comfortably live in. Our philosophy is to build modern skyscrapers, without forgetting Earth, and that is what the colors in our logo stands for; the gray for Urban, and the green for Living.

WU: What Type of projects do you handle?

JS: We generally handle mid to large scale projects, both residential and commercial. Yet these days we have been noticing more focus on the commercial projects, like offices, retail spaces, showrooms, and stores. Recently we noticed a shift in people’s way of looking at their living areas, people are thinking more about practicality, the old fashion approach to decorating is moving out and we are seeing a new trend where people want to utilize every space available, taking advantage of every room to the fullest potential possible. Our job is to make this happen, and bring it to a tangible reality.

WU: When you handle an interior design project, you get an open space that you have to bring to life – how do you know that the client will like the final setting?

JS: We prefer handling projects from scratch, starting from the architectural stage, where we have more freedom to get extremely creative ideas that could cut on cost and save energy giving our clients more flexible options, but in some cases we do get projects where the building is in existence, and we need to work on the interior. We have to take under consideration the occupant’s age, lifestyle, habits, and number of occupants. After that we start to build the interior of the home around them. For example if you have young children we will have to make the home safer for them, where if we have a handicapped person occupying the space then we’ll have to take all necessary measures to make the house accessible. If it is a newlywed couple, we focus on making the home cozy and welcoming.

WU: What about color schemes?

JS: Some clients come with a certain color in mind, while in some cases we have to ask them if they like modern clean cut designs or classical elements. If a client says “I want my house to look like a loft in Manhattan,” we know what he needs and wants, and what range of colors to use.

WU: If a client comes with nothing in mind at all, how do you handle that?

JS: In that case we ask about their favorite restaurant, or hotel. We can ask about where he or she likes to travel the most, what are their favorite colors, which will give us a sense of what they need. If all that fails we will have to use plan B. (Laughs)

WU: What’s plan B?

JS: We show them images from a wide variety of design magazines which we get on monthly bases, as well as images of previous projects, so they can decide on a preferred style or color scheme. However our clients often come to us with something in mind, and our job is to materialize it and bring it to reality.

WU: I know from personal experience that many companies try to cramp as many employees as possible in the smallest space, or even use cubicles; how would you persuade a client to allocate more space to their employees?

JS: First of all designing an office space doesn’t necessarily mean you will end up with wasted space, in most cases through good organization and creative space planning you could fit the same amount of employees you want, and still manage to keep a comfortable setting with good circulation. We focus on ventilation, greenery, sunlight, and temperature to create that environment for employees to work and be productive, most of our corporate clients come with high awareness about the benefits of using interior design since the employees will enjoy coming to work every morning, that way you’re creating a healthy, productive environment for them. I heard the rumor that the What’s Up head office has a secret spa, is it true?

WU: No comments (winks)… Is it part of the job to research where you can buy furnishing items?

JS: Of course this is a very important part of the job, and not only from the local market, but we have to research and look for the latest trends in interior design and all its components such as furniture, textiles, tiles and stones, lighting…etc; we have to compare between what the local market has, and what the international market offers, and depending on the client’s taste and budget we pick the right pieces.

WU: What are your future plans?

JS: I always like to lay a five year plan, so we have reached this level in two years so far, we are trying within the next three years to expand to Riyadh. I am also thinking of expanding to Lebanon, since we have already done some projects there. We will have a showroom where people can walk in or lounge and get inspired by ways and ideas to decorate their own homes. Another important thing I have in mind is giving females in Saudi Arabia more options and opportunities to be an active part of beautifying our surroundings, we need to hire more as we grow, since we have two active divisions both residential and commercial, we are currently developing a hospitality division. I personally think that the Middle East needs a new fresh approach to interior design and how we live our lives.