Attributed by May Jbara, Founder & Creative Director, May Jbara Design Studio

In a design landscape often driven by aesthetics, Lebanese architect and bespoke designer May Jbara is shaping a more introspective direction, one where spaces are not simply created, but understood.

As the Founder and Creative Director of May Jbara Design Studio, Jbara has developed an approach that moves beyond visual composition into something more nuanced: a dialogue between space, emotion, and human behavior. Her work is grounded in a belief that design is not an external layer, but an internal reflection of identity, memory, and the way people truly live.

“At the core, I don’t see a project as a space to be designed,” Jbara explains. “I see it as something to be read, understood, and then translated. Every space is equal to a soul. My role is to reveal it, not impose it.”

This philosophy has positioned her as a distinctive voice within the region’s design scene. Her process begins long before plans or materials are discussed through observation, conversation, and an in-depth understanding of her clients’ lifestyles, emotional patterns, and aspirations. What follows is a carefully calibrated design language, where architecture, interiors, and atmosphere are conceived as one continuous narrative.

Her work is often described as minimalist, yet it resists reduction. Instead, it is defined by precision and an exacting attention to proportion, materiality, and the subtle interplay of elements that shape how a space is experienced.

“There is a psychological dimension to every space,” she notes. “How it flows, how it feels, how it responds to you. Design, for me, is about creating that alignment, where the space and the person exist in harmony.”

Since establishing her studio in 2015, Jbara has built a portfolio spanning high-end residential projects across Lebanon and the region, with an expanding international presence that includes work in Saudi Arabia and Côte d’Ivoire. Alongside this, she operates within the highly specialized field of luxury yacht interiors; an area that demands both technical precision and a deep understanding of spatial efficiency, placing her among a rare group of designers in the Middle East working at this level.

Her work has garnered increasing international recognition with the Luxury Lifestyle Award for Best Interior Designer in 2024.

As her practice continues to evolve, May Jbara is not merely expanding geographically, yet she is contributing to a broader shift in how interior design is perceived; one that moves away from surface-level expression, and towards a more thoughtful, human-centered discipline.

In her world, space is never just a composition of elements. It is a presence that, when understood correctly, has the ability to resonate far beyond its physical form.

In today’s fast-paced lifestyles, storage isn’t just about finding extra space, it’s about protecting what you own. From everyday essentials to high-value items, how belongings are stored can directly impact their condition, longevity and usability over time, something increasingly being addressed through more advanced, technology-enabled storage solutions such as The Code.

“Storage is often treated as something you figure out later,” says Alexander Stuart, CEO of The Code. “But in reality, it should be part of how your home functions, particularly when it comes to preserving the items you value most.’’

From overcrowded wardrobes to damaged designer pieces, Alexander Stuart highlights five of the most common storage mistakes seen across homes and how to avoid them.

1. Storing items in the wrong parts of your home

Garages, balconies and spare rooms may feel like convenient overflow areas, but they are often the least suitable places to store anything of value. These spaces are typically exposed to fluctuating temperatures and humidity, which can quietly damage materials over time particularly leather, fabrics and wood. In addition, leather items and lighter-coloured clothing are especially prone to fading and colour damage when exposed to sunlight, while fur and wool pieces can absorb moisture and deteriorate in humid conditions.

“People underestimate how quickly heat and humidity can affect their belongings,” says Stuart. “We regularly see items, such as leather coats, fur coats and woolpieces that have deteriorated simply because they’ve been stored in the wrong environment.”

How to fix it:
Valuable or sensitive items including clothing, handbags, artwork and electronics should be stored in stable, climate-controlled environments where temperature and humidity are carefully managed. This is one of the key reasons services like The Code are being used, offering purpose-built storage designed specifically to preserve items over the long term.

2. Overcrowding your wardrobe (and not editing what you own)

An overcrowded wardrobe can lead to both damage and disorganisation. Clothing that is tightly packed is more likely to crease, lose shape and wear out more quickly, while limited visibility makes it harder to track what is being used.

“There’s a growing shift towards more considered wardrobes,” Stuart explains. “People are starting to prioritise visibility and accessibility over simply storing everything in one place and we’re seeing that firsthand, with 30% of our clients now using us specifically for wardrobe rotations.”

How to fix it:

Separate everyday essentials from seasonal or occasional pieces. Rotating items throughout the year helps protect them while creating a more functional and manageable wardrobe. This has led to a more ‘digital wardrobe’ approach, where items are stored off-site but remain visible, organised and accessible when needed – something The Code enables through its app-based platform.

3. Using the wrong storage materials

The materials used to store items can have a significant impact on their condition over time. Cardboard boxes can degrade, while sealed plastic containers can trap moisture, increasing the risk of mould, yellowing and fabric breakdown.

How to fix it:

Use breathable garment covers, structured boxes and protective wrapping designed to preserve items properly. For higher-value pieces, professional handling becomes particularly important. At The Code, each item is packed using specialist materials tailored to its category, ensuring protection throughout storage and transportation – a level of care difficult to achieve at home.

4. Losing track of what you’ve stored

Out of sight often becomes out of mind, leading to duplicate purchases, unused items and general disorganisation. Without a clear system, storage can quickly become inefficient.

How to fix it:

Create a simple inventory system – even basic labelling can make a difference. More advanced solutions now take this further through digital inventory systems. At The Code, items are photographed and catalogued, allowing users to view and manage their belongings at any time without needing physical access.

5. Trying to store everything at home

At a certain point, storage begins to impact how a home feels and functions. Overflowing wardrobes, cluttered rooms and items spilling into living spaces are often signs that space is being used inefficiently.

“The challenge isn’t just a lack of space, it’s how that space is being used,” Stuart explains. “When everything is kept at home, it often leads to clutter and inefficiency. On average, our clients store around 50 items, the majority of which are wardrobe pieces and that says a lot about where the real need lies. The shift now is towards creating space for how people live day-to-day, while managing everything else in a more considered way.”

How to fix it:
Adopt a more balanced approach by keeping frequently used items at home and moving seasonal or occasional belongings into a more structured system. Increasingly, external storage is being used as an extension of the home. The Code is designed around this approach, allowing clients to free up space while keeping their belongings organised, preserved and accessible when needed.

Rethinking how we store and live

In Dubai, storage isn’t just about space, it’s about how you live. With more residents travelling frequently, managing busy lifestyles and investing in higher-value belongings, there’s a growing shift towards smarter, more intentional storage solutions.

Services like The Code are part of that shift, combining climate-controlled storage, specialist handling and digital access to create a more flexible way of managing what you own.

Attributed by Twinkle Aswani, Editorial Division, Integrator Media

The belief that organizations must make a choice between supporting families and driving performance in workplaces has now been proven a misconception. Workplace realities prove the complete opposite, with a supportive work culture and a well-designed parent-friendly frameworks, productivity soars.

In the UAE, the Parent-friendly Label (PFL) has been empowering organizations to transform their workplace culture by adopting parent-friendly policies that support employees and strengthen family well-being.

PFL Cycle 3 Impact Report; ‘Thriving Through Talent: How parent-friendly policies drive balance, growth, and global competitiveness’ demonstrates the undeniable link between parent-friendly policies, and employee productivity. The report’s data captured the responses from 11,000+ employees through a comprehensive employee survey. The findings state that 70% of employees say flexible work is promoted at all levels at their organizations; 73% feel comfortable requesting it; 78% are satisfied with support for last-minute childcare emergencies.

Performance is highly impacted by this culture. When managers and peers normalize parental leave, it has a major positive effect on working parents. 74% of fathers feel encouraged by managers and 73% feel supported by peers to fully utilize their paternity leave allowances. As the leave usage rises, stress falls, and work becomes sustainable. Mothers, for their part, report strong support to take full maternity leave (82%), while 65% of them reporting smoother return to work after their maternity leave through hybrid pathways, nursing flexibility, and structured reintegration. These great outcomes are not the result of significant corporate investments, but the outcomes of removing small frictions, and clear communication around policies on organizational level.

Looking ahead to 2026, which has been declared the Year of the Family in the UAE, business leaders have a clear opportunity to make parent support a core part of how their organizations operates. This is not achieved by documenting policies alone, but by implementing them, training managers to champion a supportive culture, and tracking progress regularly. When parent-friendly practices are built into the system, the results speak for themselves — reflected not only in happier employees, but in stronger performance and higher productivity.