10th August 2026 | IN DESIGN ADVICE | BY SBID Share Tweet Pinterest LinkedIn Aisha Subhani, Founder of Aisha Subhani Design, have given her insights on design. A home carries the hands that made it. You see it in the line of a moulding, the weight of a cabinet door, the surface of a vessel, the way a piece of joinery seems to understand the room it sits in. These details may not ask for attention straight away, but they are often the reason a home feels warm, layered and deeply personal. Craft has always shaped the way I think about interiors. It is there in the way a room is planned, in the materials chosen, in the makers brought into the process, and in the details that stay with a home long after the installation is complete. How something is made matters. So do the people making it. Photography: Marcus Harvey A Lifelong Connection to Making My relationship with craft began before I was designing homes for clients. I have always been drawn to people who make things with their hands. The patience of it. The judgement involved. The knowledge that sits in a person’s fingers after years of working with the same material. That understanding changed the way I look at interiors. A room is never built from finishes alone. It comes together through proportion, use, material, detail and touch. The parts of a home people live with every day often carry the greatest importance. The cupboard opened each morning. The handle held without thinking. The shelf made for a particular collection of books. The object on a console that carries a story from another place. Those are the details that make a home feel personal. They also ask for time. A piece made for one room has to understand that room. Its light, its scale, its architecture and the people moving through it. Photography: Marcus Harvey How Craft Shapes an Interior In my interiors, craftsmanship appears in practical and beautiful ways. It might begin with bespoke joinery. A dressing room designed around the rhythm of someone’s morning. A kitchen cabinet made to hold the everyday things a family reaches for most. A library wall planned around existing architecture, rather than forced into it. The same thinking applies to mouldings. A profile can change the feeling of a room completely. It can bring softness to a clean space, restore character to a period property, or help a room feel more settled. The right moulding feels as though it has always belonged there. Handcrafted details bring another layer again. A carved stone basin. A brass fitting with a surface that will change over time. A ceramic piece shaped by hand. A textile woven slowly, with small variations that give it life. These pieces bring the maker into the room. They hold the memory of the person who worked on them. That is where the richness lies. Photography: Marcus Harvey Craft in a Current Project I am thinking about this a lot in a current apartment project on Mount Street in Mayfair. The building has history, but the home needs to work beautifully for the way people live now. That balance has made craft central to the design process. We are designing bespoke joinery throughout, developing mouldings that respond to the proportions of the rooms, and introducing handcrafted details that give the apartment warmth and character. Craftspeople are part of the project at different stages, from the makers shaping the architectural details to the artisans creating pieces that will sit within the finished rooms. There is a contemporary interpretation of Arts and Crafts thinking within this project. Materials, making, detail and use all sit at the centre of the work. The result belongs to modern living, but has the patience and skill of something made properly. Craft is present in the larger decisions, but also in the smaller ones. The depth of a profile. The scale of a cupboard. The material chosen for a surface that will be touched every day. The way one handmade piece can shift the feeling of an entire corner. Photography: Marcus Harvey Photography: Marcus Harvey Working with Makers A great deal of my work happens through conversation with makers. I work with artisans across South Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and each workshop brings its own materials, methods and traditions. A maker who has spent years with timber, brass, clay, stone or textile understands that material in a way that comes from practice. That knowledge changes the final piece. A drawing can set the intention, but the maker brings judgement. They know where a line should be softened, where a material will resist, where a finish will age well, and where a small adjustment will make the piece feel more natural in the room. That exchange is one of the most valuable parts of the process. It allows a home to carry more than one point of view. The client, the designer and the maker each shape what the room becomes. Photography: Marcus Harvey How Ash Revive Grew From the Same Belief Ash Revive came from this long-standing relationship with craft. For years, I sourced handcrafted pieces for private clients. Again and again, these objects became the pieces people loved most in their homes. A bowl on a console. A carved object on a shelf. A piece of brasswork catching the light. The maker’s name, process and story were always part of the value of the piece. I wanted those stories to have more space. Ash Revive allows the artisans I work with to sit beside their work. Each piece is chosen with care, and each collection keeps the story of the maker close to the object itself. It grew naturally from the studio, because the belief is the same. Craft deserves to be understood, credited and lived with. Photography: Marcus Harvey The Handcrafted Home The homes I love most are full of details that feel as though they belong exactly where they are. The joinery follows the room’s own rhythm. The materials have been chosen with patience. The objects carry a hand you can sense, even when you could never name whose it was. A handcrafted home is shaped by more people than the designer’s name suggests. The maker, the artisan, the client who trusted the process when it took longer than expected. Each brings something the others could never have created alone. That accumulation, more than any single beautiful object, is what gives a home its depth. About Aisha Subhani Design Founded by Aisha Subhani, Aisha Subhani Design is a London-based interior design studio creating luxury interiors across the UK and internationally. Drawing on global craftsmanship, collectible design and a contemporary sensibility, the studio creates homes that feel deeply personal to the people who live in them. Services include concept development, art curation, bespoke furniture and sourcing from collectible makers, alongside Private Design Consultations with Aisha for those seeking considered guidance without a full design package. The studio works with a select number of clients each year, allowing each project the time, care and attention it deserves. Visit Profile If you’d like to feature your news or stories on SBID.org, get in touch to find out more. If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.