Hicham Lahlou, international industrial designer and interior architect, joins me on the podcast to discuss the overlaps between African and Australian design.

Hicham Lahlou alongside Emerald, specially created for Dakar Biennale 2024, Design Section Exhibition.
July 4th, 2025
Learn more about Stories Indesign here, and keep an eye out for new episodes – remember to subscribe and review!
Moroccan designer Hicham Lahlou took part in the podcast on the last day of his visit to Australia after representing Morocco, the Arab and African design world as keynote speaker of Design & Build Week. Sitting in The Commons at Surry Hills, Lahlou delved into the idea of identity, drawing comparison between Australia and Morocco – each one as its own “mosaic of cultures.” Local richness, diversity and traditional handicrafts all remain integral to his work, even more so when developing global designs. During the podcast, he discusses the role of design and current designers in inspiring emerging designers, allowing diversity to develop richness both locally and globally.
Read more on Lahlou in this story
“You should think without boundaries,” says Lahlou during the interview. “You can think local but you have to act global. We are a small village, we use the same practice but our difference is our richness… Design is a catalyst of innovation; we are interesting people – sensitive, human-first. We can create iconic pieces. And I would love – why not! – one day to showcase designs from Morocco in some of your museums.”
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
The Geelong College’s Sport and Wellbeing Centre ‘Belerren’ designed by Wardle is designed around bringing in natural light. But Shade Factor’s job was to help modulate and precisely control it for the most important competitive moments.
Stepping into Intuit’s Sydney workplace certainly doesn’t feel like walking into an office. Why? In this film, we discover that, when joy takes precedence as a design driver, even a high-performing commercial CBD headquarters can feel like an intuitive wonderland that invites employees to choose their own adventure.
In the last instalment of our three-part performance seating series, Alex Bain from Architectus explains why sitting well shouldn’t feel like sitting at all and explores an unexpected success metric of the hybrid workplace: the grounding power of emotional support.
For Libertine Parfumerie’s new Armadale boutique, Tamsin Johnson looked to the warmth of the home and the rhythm of old-world shopfronts to make fragrance retail feel slower, richer and more personal.
Powerhouse Parramatta has commissioned more than 50 leading designers from across Australia to shape the spaces and experiences of the new museum, including public, exhibition, restaurant and retail spaces.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
As part of our ongoing series of intimate editorial dinners with Signature Appliances, we recently gathered a group of architects, designers and industry voices in Sydney for a private conversation around one of design’s most persistent questions: can everyone have access to great design and beautiful spaces?
At Machine Hall, Herman Miller gathered Sydney’s design community to consider performance seating as part of workplace strategy, not just workplace furniture.