The Woman in Construction Boots and Fendi Bag is the feature title in Egypt Today Magazine about Dalia Sadany's career

1. HomesDalia Sadany
Architect
www.EgyptToday.com64 Egypt Today December 2012
By Nadine El Sayed
I
t’s hard to imagine a trendy young woman in a funky blouse, cropped trousers,
perfect hair and polished nails on a construction site blasting orders to workers
then sitting down with her crew to share a glass of tea and a fuul sandwich.
It’s hard, that is, until you meet Dalia Sadany in person.
Sadany, the chief designer and founder of Dezines Architecture and Interior Design,
bursts with confidence. We met at her eclectic but contemporary office lodged in the heart
of busy Mohandessin, and the ambiance definitely reflected her: bold, trendy, clean-lined
and standing out amidst the busy mismatch of buildings. Sitting in the reception waiting
for our interview, I could overhear her conversation with a client, so the first impression I
got, before even meeting Sadany, was that she definitely spoke her mind.
Shuffling between two appointments, Sadany came rushing out and sat down to chat
with me while her assistant took over the other meeting. The multi-tasking skills of a mas-
ter builder shone through several times as Sadany attended to a client, answered her em-
ployees’ enquiries, and managed to spend an hour and a half with me speaking about her
career, her love life, architecture, art and even politics.
The Master Builder
To see a successful businesswoman who juggles her personal life, career and all the pres-
sures society puts on women in our culture is inspiring, especially if it’s one thriving in
a very male-dominated industry like contracting. And Sadany believes women can do a
rather good job at it too.
“Women have a tendency to be meticulous and have an eye for detail,” Sadany says.
“This is why we are drama queens, we focus on de-
tails and contracting is about details.”
Sadany, who has been in the business for almost
20 years, explains that designers have to know the
materials they need to transform a vision
into reality and how practically feasible
their designs are. She, for one, is a firm
believer in being very hands-on at the ex-
ecution phase, and she isn’t afraid to get
down and dirty to work on a piece of fur-
niture, or even a wall for that matter.
“I realized then that however good I am
How a perfectly polished young woman carved herself a place in the very macho world of
contracting and construction, all the while maintaining her design flair
The Woman in the
Construction
Boots and Fendi Bag
Sadany’saward-winningBabour
Dawartable
CourtesyDaliaSadany

2. December 2012 Egypt Today 65
HayssamSamir/EgyptToday

3. www.EgyptToday.com66 Egypt Today December 2012
HomesDalia Sadany
Architect
to really pin down the personality of her
clients and gives them a psychology test so
she can design something they are com-
fortable living in.
“I can’t do a conservative design for
people who are funky and fresh. Maybe
they will like it at first, but they won’t feel
comfortable with it later,” she explains.
Instead, Sadany believes her work needs
to reflect the client’s personality and the
living spaces she designs can’t look alike.
“I design homes, not houses; a refuge,” she
adds.
Her design persona is eclectic with a
passion for contemporary. She doesn’t
believe in sticking to one design style and
loves fusion, altering styles to suit her cli-
ents’ tastes.
This year Sadany was voted one of the
53 winners at the A’ Design Furniture,
Homeware and Décor Items Design com-
petition held in Italy, which saw over 4,000
contestants from 140 countries compet-
ing in 80 design categories. Her winning
entry was a table inspired by a very Egyp-
tian icon: the babour (a local version of a
primus stove that was very popular during
the last century). She got the idea for the
Babour Dawar Table after sharing a glass
of tea with her workers on a construction
site. The tea was boiled on a babour and
shewasinstantlyinspiredbythehistorical
and folkloric heritage the item presented,
as well as the proportions and design of
the handy little cooker.
“The concept that every item in our
lives, even an outdated kitchen appliance,
can have beauty in it if seen from an art-
seeking eye,” inspired Sadany to take an
old Egyptian household icon and make
it into a trendy, yet authentic and char-
acteristically Egyptian piece of furniture.
The piece, which took about 10 months to
design, was handcrafted in Old Cairo and
the wood was given veneer polish or lac-
quered paint to put a contemporary, hip
twist to the design. The design not only
aimed to pay tribute to our culture, but
it also served as proof against the prevail-
on site.” And to do so, she adds, she needs
to always be on top of her game “You have
to master your tools, know your work very
well, treat the workers with respect and
they will respect you back,” she says.
Sadany, her craftsmen and her workers
are now in perfect harmony, having spent
hours and hours working together on site.
They’ve lost count of the times Sadany has
rolled up her sleeves, gathered up a brush
and paint and climbed a ladder to get just
the right shade. “Now they can’t wait for
my next crazy idea” she says. “On site I am
treated like an older sister. I am their back-
bone, I support my men, they are my crew,
my team. They know I know the job and
the details and if I don’t, I ask. I am never
too embarrassed to learn.”
The Designer
Sadany’s own contracting expertise has
not cannibalized the artsy designer in her.
She doesn’t believe in the commercial-
ization of design and architecture, has a
strong opinion about Egypt’s architectur-
al identity — or lack of one, really — and
a strong passion for experimenting with
wood, paints and brushes.
As an interior designer, her process
starts with a friendly chat over coffee
to get to know her clients, their lifestyle,
what they like and are comfortable with
and what they expect of the house. Hav-
ing studied psychology, she dedicates time
in design I can’t do design and turn it to
reality unless I study contracting,” Sadany
says.
With a degree in construction engineer-
ing, she wanted to do more than to de-
sign models and watch from a distance as
someone else brought them to life — and
never to her best liking at that. So she de-
cided to take on the whole job, from the
minute when it’s still a vague idea her
clients might be interested in until the
point where they happily move in. After
graduation, seeing she needed to learn
more about her business, Sadany went to
Italy to study and get hands-on experience
in interior design and landscaping. She
came back to work for one of the biggest
real estate developers in Egypt, becoming
the head of the architectural department
in 1995. In 2005, she established her own
company, becoming a master builder who
delivers turnkey projects to clients and
subcontracting to fellow architects and
designers. Besides her contracting and
design services, she also launched Gush, a
furniture and lighting company, in 2011.
Sadany admits it was hard to find work-
ers — who generally aren’t used to being
bossed around by a woman, especially
a younger one. Still she believes we have
some of the best craftsmanship locally,
and that gaining their respect and trust is
easy with a little confidence.
“You have to have some sort of presence
Afterearningherworkers’respect,Sadany
saystheytreatherlikeanoldersister.
CourtesyDaliaSadany

4. December 2012 Egypt Today 67
menting strict rules for building facades,
tearing down or putting up signs, exten-
sions or even trees, but also into funding
strong district councils able to imple-
ment and monitor codes and violations,
as well as provide parking lots and pe-
destrian areas. “It is a revolutionary proj-
ect, but it has to start somewhere,” she
believes. “The problem is that we don’t
follow systems. We break rules, and it is
chaos, and this is what happened to ar-
chitecture in Egypt.”
Next on Sadany’s philanthropy check-
list is to form a committee for women in
her field, the entrepreneurs, the designers
and the architects, and to connect them
with each other as well as with others
abroad. et
these very rich eras and civilizations and
motifs you’re supposed to end up with
something magnificently brilliant. We
ended up with nothing.”
Hence came “The Face of Egypt” project
that Sadany pioneered with 10 of the na-
tion’s most established professors to solve
the problem of architecture in Egypt and
submit to the government. The mismatch
of buildings has become an eyesore, which
Sadany believes is affecting the psychol-
ogy of citizens who are subjected to stress-
inducing streets on a daily basis. Having a
unified architecture identity isn’t a luxury,
Sadany argues, “architecture is the mirror
of civilizations.”
The initiative aims to channel some
of the tax money into not only imple-
ing stereotype about Egyptian craftsmen.
Egyptian workers can be skillful, precise
and dedicated with the right guidance.
The Wife
Longhours,constructionsitesanddozens
of workers who might not be too happy to
follow a woman’s orders would likely test
the patience of any husband, but Sadany
says her husband, who is half Egyptian,
half British, is her biggest supporter.
“He is fine with the long hours of work
and the hectic lifestyle, I couldn’t have
done it without him,” she says. Together
with her partner for six years, Sadany says
her husband has become her “personal
assistant” in a way. An investment bank-
er, “he’s the brains, I am the listener,”
Sadany says with a laugh as she explains
how he’s always involved in her work and
helps her brainstorm. Her husband, she
adds, has even developed an eye for de-
sign: when they go out for dinner, it isn’t
just Sadany checking out the surround-
ings and shredding the design elements
to pieces, her husband now enthusiasti-
cally chips in too.
The Philanthropist
Believing in the potential of Egyptian
workers and that machinery and mass
production as well as a craze for college
education have led to the deterioration
of craftsmanship in Egypt, Sadany re-
cently started up workshops led by master
craftsmen to teach younger workers the
secrets of their trades.
“If workers today, with all the revo-
lutionary technology, can’t recreate [a
200-year-old building] because it is too
expensive to do it by hand, then we’ve
deteriorated. To fight the commercializa-
tion of the industry and preserve Egyp-
tian craftsmanship and design character,
70- and 80-year-old craftsmen need to
pass down their wisdom to younger ones
and tutor them on handicrafts that they
should be proud of.”
A pet peeve of Sadany’s, and one of the
reasons she got into architecture to begin
with, is the lack of an architectural iden-
tity in Egypt. “Egypt is a big bowl of salad,
it is a collage of lots of civilizations,” she
says. “The problem is when you have all
The ExpertT he advice she gives young designers is simple: Get inspiration from everything
and anything, even the color palette of a woman’s make up. “Walk around
with a camera, start up your own library. There is a library in every one of us; we
grasp what we like. Document it if you can, and keep your senses open,” Sadany
advise.
“And always be alert to things, even the ones that aren’t obvious.”
HayssamSamir/EgyptToday