Meet Nada Elkharashi
Nada Elkharashi is an interdisciplinary research designer and founder of NRK Interdisciplinary Design Research Studio, investigating how culture, behavior, and environmental conditions shape the forms surrounding daily life.
Through material experimentation and cultural observation, her work develops installations, objects, and spatial experiences that respond to human interaction and place.
We all sleep, but in different beds. We all drink, but from different cups. We all eat, but with different hands, tools, and behaviors. Design should respond to these cultural and behavioral differences rather than flattening everyone into universalized solutions.
Key Projects
- NRK - An interdisciplinary Design Research Studio exploring the relationship between culture, behavior, material, and form through installations, objects, and spatial experiences.
- The Mantle - A handcrafted oyster-shell biocomposite object inspired by the mantle of an oyster, the part responsible for forming the pearl. Developed through material experimentation and sculptural fabrication, the work reflects on education, transformation, and the quiet processes that shape long-term impact. Created for the WISE Prize for Education.
- Al-Fag’a Oasis - An interactive installation inspired by the communal ritual of truffle hunting in the desert. The project combines water collection, filtration, and sensory interaction to translate environmental knowledge, collective behavior, and cultural memory into a contemporary spatial experience. Exhibited at the Gwangju Biennale.
- Unheld - An interactive analogue installation using handmade paper developed from community-collected bougainvillea petals. Suspended fibrous sheets move in response to the viewer’s presence, shaping scent, movement, and spatial experience. Each sheet carries the coordinates of its collection site, forming a suspended map of memory and place. Firestation Museum.
- 66km - A humidity-catching light installation inspired by Morocco’s water scarcity and Qatar’s atmospheric humidity. Using sabra silk, condensation systems, and light, the project explores how environmental conditions and local materials can inform alternative approaches to water collection and spatial experience. Exhibited at the Museum of Islamic Art.
- Form Follows Culture - A long-term methodology exploring how cultural behaviors influence the forms, objects, and spatial systems surrounding everyday life. The work investigates how design can move beyond universalized solutions by responding to culturally specific ways of living. Through observation and translation, everyday rituals become generators of form.
