The Architect of Belonging: Sandra
I met Sandra at the gym. I didn’t know then that ours would be a friendship so meaningful, that it would reshape the future of this brand. Perhaps that's exactly how fate works its magic: not through grand plans, but through the quiet insistence of the universe putting two people in the same room at exactly the right time.
We discovered we'd both attended the Lebanese University in Mount Lebanon, though in different years. We never crossed paths then, never sat in the same classrooms or walked the same hallways. But Sandra had a relationship with that road, the one that winds up the mountain to where the atelier now lives. She used to travel it on her way to school. Years later, she would travel it again, this time to help me build a dream I didn't yet know how to articulate.
Sandra became a dear friend before she ever became an architect on this project. It started over maté. We sat together, and I told her about the house in the mountains. About my idea. I wasn't even thinking she would get involved. I was just talking, processing, wondering aloud whether I could really do this.
And then, mid-conversation, Sandra pulled out her iPad and started sketching. She drew my concerns, the space, the potential. She showed me, right there in that café, why I shouldn't be afraid. I remember thinking: Does she really want to do this? The answer, as it turned out, was yes.
What followed was a year of building together. Not just walls and floors and carefully chosen details, but trust. Understanding. A kind of telepathic partnership where we could look at each other and know, without words, what needed to happen next. Sandra didn't just translate my emotions and memories into space, she lived inside them with me. She visited the house over and over, sat with the women on my team, asked them how they worked, what mattered to them, what would make the atelier feel like home.
She became part of our family. My mother, Najwa, and Sandra are constantly on WhatsApp now, sending messages back and forth about moving things, adjusting details, dreaming up new possibilities. Sandra's charm is undeniable, larger than life, endlessly joyful, impossibly positive. Even the contractors in the mountains, men who didn't speak her language or understand her design background, softened under her patience and warmth.
Sandra built the atelier with her own belief that something beautiful could emerge from humble beginnings. It was about creating something grounded, something real, something that honoured the past while making space for the future.
Together, we designed door handles from scratch, the bird on one door, the orange on the other. We turned the staircase into a memory lane of the brand's history, culminating in a framed piece: the first design I ever attempted, hanging just before you enter the universe of Salim Azzam. Every detail was a conversation with craft at the center.
Throughout my journey with Salim Azzam, I've been surrounded by people who don't just get excited about potential, they roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. Sandra is one of those people. She gave this project her heart, her soul, her time, her patience. The feeling of building something that matters.
We both wear gold chain scissors now, a small symbol of what we built together. A remembrance. A reminder that the best collaborations aren't just about the work, they're about the connection, the trust, the shared belief that something extraordinary can come from something humble.
Sandra reminded me that the right people arrive at the right time. The truth is, the atelier wouldn't be what it is without her. And neither would I.
Written by Clare Deal
Photographed by Mohamad Al-Rifai