Irene Caravaca Valencia

Born in Granada and raised in the south of Spain, Irene earned her Master’s Degree from the Higher Technical School of Seville, and Universität Stuttgart.

Studying in these two nearly opposite cities truly enriched her perception of design. Seville offered a very open mind to find the most humane contact to design and encouraged the practice of continuing research until the kindest solution to the user was found. In Seville, an ancient city with economic disparity, to design around heritage and to adjust to a very low budget to suit a humble community, are key design challenges. Stuttgart offered an opportunity to design using cutting-edge technology, as well as the opportunity to build one’s designs.

Irene interned in an urban planning office and a design studio, where she developed sensitive designs, later moving to a full-time position at a bigger international company based in Stuttgart. She moved to Dubai while working on the Jewel of the Creek project and joined EDGE Design at the start of 1/JBR, seeing it through from concept design to construction.

Irene attributes her professional growth and improved understanding of regulations and municipality requirements of design to working with developers such as Emaar and Dubai Properties, as well as private developers in Egypt.
“Like happiness, design is best when shared.”

Irene strongly believes that design takes its best shape when all voices are heard, when all members of the team are equally strong and they all believe in the purpose of the project. Her goal is to ensure that everyone in the team is satisfied with what is being developed, which is why she enjoys coordination and collaboration during the design process.

Having recently joined the interior design team, following 8 years of work in architectural design, she has grown to understand the importance of scale; from the urban context and envelope, to the details of its interiors and how it all meshes to become a piece that will be lived (and hopefully loved) by us.