For 12 years Omar worked in publicity and set design, but when his first son was born he left it behind to follow his passion for sculpting wood. It is an art he’d learned from his father (Omar was born in Kabul and raised both in Afghanistan and Switzerland) so when he opened a workshop/studio in Barcelona he wanted his own children to learn from his work as well.

“I believe in heritage and what you transmit… This is something I received from my father, not really learning technique, but I’ve lived with his work, and I want to give this to my children.

His family has a home 5 minutes from his workshop/gallery space, but he felt the best way for his children to learn from his work was to live with it. So every other week the family lives in his gallery space.

It’s just a small studio with no extra bedroom so he built beds into the wall. He hacked a window blind to create an automated bed for himself and his wife. The children’s beds are much lighter so he simply created a stop plug that holds them upright and can be removed to lower them at night.

The laundry machine is in the kitchen and the drying rack is hoisted by pulley into the empty space above it. He also built the dining table which folds up stores besides the refrigerator.

When the beds are put away the room looks like an open gallery space, but at night it feels like a night in a museum.

“This is a style of life- to work with your hands and do useful things, and something you integrate into your space and in your day- the craftwork style of life. It has another vibe when you live with objects with a soul. You don’t need to have a lot of objects, but some that have soul, this gives you much more.”