Design Days Dubai caught up with Beirut-based contemporary furniture producer and gallery Squad Design ahead of their presentation at the fair’s fifth edition in March.

Squad Design endorses and sponsors young design talents by realising and exposing their work in Lebanon and abroad. With the direction of established designers, Squad Design scouts for exceptional talent for whom they can open doors and give access to the international design market. By creating and supplying the market with original and innovative designs, their aim is to raise awareness and profile of Lebanese product design.

TORRESHANHAUSEN, Meshlamp

Design Days Dubai: How did the decision to set up Squad Design come up?
Squad Design: Lebanese design has strong potential but most designers don't have the time, finances or business relations to build and promote their ideas. Squad Design is a sister company of the well-known and recognised Lebanese carpentry Wood Factory, who decided to share it know-how to all those talents.  

DDD: The gallery has a strong reputation in supporting young talents from Lebanon. How do you discover these emerging designers?
SD: We live in a small country so the word of mouth works easily. We also meet young talents through collaboration with universities, teachers and established designers.

Fadi Mansour, Clouds

DDD: Form and function have equal importance at Squad Design. Why is it important for you to support a design’s full production cycle?
SD: The most exciting part of our job is to witness the birth of an idea with a designer, discuss it, make it real and then be part of its creation and be one of the firsts to discover the final piece. It is very challenging but in the end very rewarding for the designers, for the craftsmen who worked on the pieces and for us. More than providing them with a financial part, we help the talents reach their goal.

Joe Bou Abboud, Derwishe

DDD: This is Squad Design’s second time at Design Days Dubai, what will you bring the fair and what are you looking forward to?
SD: Meet new players in the design field and give us the chance to show the creativity of the young designers.

DDD: What do you think design can offer society?
SD: Design is not just about aesthetics. Design is constantly in the process of innovation in order to meet buyer’s needs. The aim is to find an optimal balance between the concerns of each other, to make the product line with expectations, more ergonomic, safer and thus facilitate our daily lives.

Squad Design unveils a new limited design collection at Design Days Dubai in March. The theme is ‘Intensified Lightness’, each of the designers has created one malleable object that alters its appearance to serve different functions with endless lightness and grace. The selected designers are Stephanie Sayar & Charbel Garibeh, Majd Bazerji, TORRESHANHAUSEN, Tarek El Kassouf, Fadi Mansour, Joe Arida, Joe Bou Abboud and Hamid Bekradi.