Covid-19 Is Teaching Us What’s Most Valuable About Home

Rita Chraibi is a Moroccan interior designer who has worked on projects in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Recently, her firm, International Designers, opened an office in Miami. From there, she spoke about the newly changed landscape of design and how it reflects our reordered priorities.

“People are looking for a connection to the natural,” she says. “In recent years, technology took center stage in so many ways, and we forgot about nature. Now, it is suddenly very important. We are smart as humans, but we need to understand that the earth must be respected.”

Chraibi followed in the footsteps of her grandmother, one of Morocco’s pioneering businesswomen in real estate development in the 1950s. She graduated from Ecole Camondo in Paris, one of the leading schools of design and architecture, before she launched her firm, where she has designed luxury international residential and hospitality projects. She recently entered into a design partnership with the French modern furniture company Roche Bobois.

“The most valuable aspect of home is not only to promote elegant design, but to provide comfort for a family,” Chraibi says. 

“Because of the current Cornoa virus quarantine, people will spend more time at home than at the office. We will not go back to schedules that demand endless commuting time and sitting in offices with lots of other people. We will want our homes to bring us in touch with nature, to be filled with natural light and to evoke a sense of peace.”

To this end, she endorses removing clutter to mitigate feelings of stress. 

“In all the world, what people want most right now is a cozy interior,” says Chraibi. “With LED technology, we have so many more possibilities for indirect light that makes for a cozy atmosphere. In the United States, people love the razzmatazz of technology, like controlling lighting from afar via their cell phones. Europeans are more basic: they like candles.”

Whether it is lamplight illuminating a favorite reading nook or a south-facing window, Chraibi feels she cannot overstate the importance of good light. 

“A ray of light breathes in life,” she says. “I am invested in providing a space filled with light that penetrates every inch of space and reflects across a kaleidoscope of shadows. It is an invaluable aspect of interior design and literally illuminates the beauty of the product.”  

Chraibi also believes that our love affair with mid-century modernism may be coming to an end.

“This last decade, modern style was all anyone wanted. But modernism is very cold. When I work in a modern design, I put in something wild. The mix of modern and classic is great!”

In fact, she thinks that a pure modern interior is really not a designed one.

“Modern is a very simple and minimalist style, and someone who only works in modern interiors is really not a designer. It’s too easy, there’s no need to study or learn. To make it sing, you have to bring in something unexpected.”