Why Charlie Rizk believes luxury interiors should outlast the trends Inside Charlie Rizk’s Edge Design Consultants

The most convincing luxury interiors rarely need to announce their value.

Their appeal is revealed more gradually: in the weight of a door, the texture of a natural material, the proportion of the furniture or the way lighting changes the mood of a room after dark.

It is this quieter expression of luxury that has shaped the work of Charlie Rizk, founder and design director of Sydney studio Edge Design Consultants.

Established in 2006, the boutique practice works across residential and commercial interiors, offering services that range from architectural interior design and material selection to bespoke furniture, furnishing and final styling.

Its portfolio spans family homes, waterfront retreats, commercial workplaces and apartments within some of Sydney’s most prominent residential buildings. But according to the studio’s philosophy, the common thread is not a readily identifiable aesthetic.

Instead, it is an emphasis on longevity, personalisation and a close relationship between designer and client.

From the salon to the design studio

Rizk’s route into interior design was unconventional.

Before establishing Edge Design Consultants, he founded the Sydney hair salon Escapadehfb. While the two businesses operate in different creative fields, Rizk’s early career gave him experience in interpreting highly personal client briefs.

That ability to listen — and to distinguish between what a client initially requests and how they ultimately want to feel — became central to his work in interiors.

A client may arrive with a collection of reference images, favourite colours or individual pieces of furniture. The designer’s role is not simply to assemble those elements. It is to identify the underlying preference connecting them and translate it into a coherent environment.

That distinction becomes particularly important in bespoke residential design, where the success of a room is determined by more than its appearance in photographs.

The interior must accommodate routines, collections, entertaining, children, pets, privacy and storage. Materials must also be selected according to how they will perform after years of use.

A deliberately boutique model

Edge Design Consultants has remained a relatively small studio, allowing Rizk to maintain personal involvement across its projects.

For clients, that structure offers continuity. Architectural detailing, fixtures, finishes, furniture and styling can be developed as parts of the same design narrative rather than commissioned as disconnected stages.

The studio’s full-service model can begin with spatial planning and architectural interiors before progressing through mood boards, material selections, custom furniture and the final installation.

This continuity is particularly valuable on complex homes involving architects, builders, specialist trades, suppliers and landscape designers. Decisions made at the beginning of a project can affect everything that follows, from the dimensions of a custom sofa to the placement of lighting, power and joinery.

Bringing the interior designer into the process early can help prevent decorative decisions from being imposed on a largely completed building.

It also creates opportunities for furniture, art and objects to inform the architecture itself.

The case against a signature look

Many successful designers become associated with a recognisable palette or recurring visual device. Edge takes a less prescriptive position.

The studio’s work includes warm, layered family interiors as well as more restrained contemporary apartments and sharper commercial spaces. Its stated priorities are durability, considered materials and an understanding of the way each space will be occupied.

This does not mean abandoning a point of view. Rather, the designer’s sensibility is expressed through proportion, editing and consistency instead of a formula repeated from one project to another.

For affluent homeowners, this can be an important distinction. A heavily trend-driven interior may look current when completed but quickly reveal the moment in which it was designed.

An enduring home needs enough character to feel individual without becoming hostage to a short-lived fashion.

Natural stone, timber, metalwork and well-made furniture can provide that foundation, but material expense alone does not create permanence. The detailing, installation and relationship between the materials matter just as much.

Designing from the building out

Edge’s published portfolio includes residential projects in Pymble, Epping, North Rocks, Strathfield, Pyrmont and Wagstaffe, along with the furnishing and styling of a residence in Crown Sydney. A Pymble residence (below) was featured on Channel Nine’s Australia’s Best House in 2023.

The scope varies between projects.

Some commissions involve complete architectural interior design, furniture and styling. Others focus on furnishing an existing residence, where the challenge is to introduce identity without altering the underlying architecture.

A penthouse, for example, may already possess exceptional views, finishes and proportions. The designer’s task is then to create intimacy, establish visual rhythm and ensure the furniture remains appropriately scaled to the volume of the rooms.

A freestanding family home presents different considerations. Storage, circulation, durability and the relationship between indoor and outdoor areas may take precedence over creating a formal sense of arrival.

The best result is not necessarily the most dramatic. It is the one in which the architecture, finishes, furniture and objects feel as though they were always intended to coexist.

Luxury as a personal experience

After 20 years, Edge Design Consultants sits within a design market transformed by social media and unprecedented access to international references.

Clients can now identify furniture, stone, lighting and interiors from around the world before their first conversation with a designer. That access can broaden a brief, but it can also produce an overwhelming collection of competing ideas.

The designer’s role is increasingly one of curation: deciding what belongs, what should be removed and which references can be translated convincingly into an Australian home.

For Rizk, the boutique scale of Edge allows that process to remain personal.

The studio’s version of luxury is therefore not defined by a single material, brand or visual signature. It lies in the time spent understanding a client, the care with which each element is selected and the sense that the completed space belongs specifically to the people living within it.

Fact box

Designer: Charlie Rizk
Role: Founder and design director
Studio: Edge Design Consultants
Established: 2006
Location: Sydney, NSW
Services: Architectural interior design, spatial planning, mood boards, fixtures and finishes, bespoke furniture, furnishing and styling
Project types: Luxury residences, apartments, penthouses and boutique commercial interiors
Selected locations: Pymble, Epping, North Rocks, Strathfield, Pyrmont, Wagstaffe, Macquarie Park and Crown Sydney
Selected media: Australia’s Best House, Kanebridge Quarterly and Robb Report Australia
Website: edgedesignconsultants.com.au
Instagram: @edge_design_consultants

For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.

The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.

“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.

That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.

Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.

The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.

“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”

Collecting instead of decorating

Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.

Collecting is less conclusive.

A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.

That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.

A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.

The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.

For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.

Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.

A design perspective shaped by travel

International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.

Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.

More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.

“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”

Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.

Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.

A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.

The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.

Designing the complete experience

FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.

The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.

That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.

Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.

The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.

Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.

The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.

A home that can keep changing

The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.

Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.

“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”

That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.

The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.

This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.

Fact box

Designer: Jack Freeman

Role: Founder and managing director

Practice: FREEMAN & CO

Base: Australia, with international projects

Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean

Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts

Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation

Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials

Website: free-man.co

Why Charlie Rizk believes luxury interiors should outlast the trends