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.

A penthouse in Barangaroo

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 was featured on Channel Nine’s Australia’s Best House in 2023.

The Pymble home

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

As population growth, infrastructure spending and rezoning reshape Sydney’s west, CBRE senior director Alex Mirzaian has built a career around navigating the increasingly complex market for development sites.

For decades, Sydney’s prestige property conversation was dominated by the harbour and the city’s eastern suburbs. Yet some of its most consequential development activity has been taking place in a different part of the metropolitan area.

Population growth, major transport projects, new employment centres and extensive rezoning have steadily changed the scale of opportunity across Western Sydney. They have also made development transactions more complicated.

It is in this environment that Alex Mirzaian has built his career.

Mirzaian is a senior director within CBRE’s Development NSW business, operating across the company’s Western Sydney and North Sydney offices. He joined CBRE in February 2013 and has accumulated more than 15 years of property experience, with a particular focus on the sale and acquisition of development sites.

His professional trajectory reflects Western Sydney’s transformation from a market sometimes treated as peripheral to one that now plays a central role in the city’s growth.

Building expertise in a changing market

Selling a development site is markedly different from selling an established home.

Its value is influenced not only by location and land area but by planning controls, permissible density, infrastructure, construction economics, funding conditions and the intended end market. Two neighbouring parcels can have dramatically different development potential.

A successful campaign therefore depends on establishing what the land could become and identifying the buyers capable of delivering that outcome.

Mirzaian developed his practice in Western Sydney as investment and development attention moved towards the region’s growth corridors. Working in the market over an extended period gave him exposure to different planning environments, buyer groups and property cycles.

That experience is increasingly valuable as Western Sydney’s development landscape becomes more sophisticated. Landowners may be dealing with changes to zoning or density, while developers must test potential projects against rising construction costs, financing constraints and changing buyer demand.

A property’s theoretical development yield may look compelling on paper. Whether that yield can be delivered economically is another question.

More than finding a buyer

Development-site sales are often described in terms of the final price, but the structure of a transaction can be just as important.

Settlement periods, planning conditions, due-diligence requirements, deposits and access arrangements can materially influence the attractiveness and certainty of a deal. A higher offer with extensive conditions may not ultimately provide a vendor with a better outcome than a cleaner proposal from a well-capitalised buyer.

Mirzaian’s work centres on managing those competing considerations through a structured sales process.

That begins with understanding the site and the vendor’s priorities. It then extends to identifying likely purchaser groups, presenting the development opportunity coherently and managing negotiations between parties that may have very different commercial requirements.

According to the profile supplied to Kanebridge, Mirzaian’s clients have included private landowners, developers, offshore investors, government bodies, religious and community organisations, and receivers handling more complex or distressed assets.

Each category presents a different brief.

A family disposing of a long-held property may be primarily concerned with price, certainty and timing. A government agency may require a highly transparent process. A receiver will often be working within strict legal and financial parameters, while an experienced developer may place greater emphasis on planning potential and settlement flexibility.

The agent’s role is consequently closer to that of a transaction adviser than a conventional salesperson.

Working across Sydney’s property markets

Mirzaian’s position across CBRE’s Western Sydney and North Sydney operations also reflects the way development capital now moves throughout the metropolitan area.

Developers and investors rarely confine themselves to one geographical market. They compare opportunities according to planning risk, projected demand, construction feasibility and the availability of finance.

Relationships established through one transaction can therefore lead to opportunities in a very different part of the city.

Western Sydney remains an important part of Mirzaian’s professional identity, but his current remit extends beyond it. That broader coverage allows him to connect owners and purchasers operating across established and emerging Sydney markets.

It also provides a view of how buyer priorities change between locations. A project in a mature North Shore suburb may depend on scarcity and an affluent local downsizer market. A larger Western Sydney site might instead derive value from future population growth, transport investment or the potential to create housing at scale.

The fundamentals of the transaction remain consistent, but the development and marketing strategy must respond to the location.

A market that rewards clear advice

Sydney’s development sector is operating in a more demanding environment than it was during periods of cheap capital and rapid price growth.

Developers are scrutinising construction costs, presales, finance and delivery risk more closely. Vendors must distinguish between ambitious expressions of interest and offers with a credible prospect of reaching settlement.

In that setting, disciplined transaction management becomes particularly important.

A competitive campaign still needs to generate interest, but it must also give prospective purchasers enough information and confidence to progress. Clear timelines, appropriately managed due diligence and realistic communication can help preserve competition without compromising certainty.

Mirzaian’s career offers a useful perspective on the evolution of development sales. His rise has occurred alongside that of Western Sydney itself: a market shaped by growth, infrastructure and increasingly complex development decisions.

The value of an adviser in this environment is not measured solely by the ability to attract the highest headline offer. It lies in understanding the site, recognising the motivations of each stakeholder and creating a process capable of turning interest into a completed transaction.

Fact box

Name: Alex Mirzaian
Position: Senior Director, Development NSW
Company: CBRE
Office coverage: Western Sydney and North Sydney
Joined CBRE: February 2013
Property experience: More than 15 years, according to the supplied profile
Specialisation: Development-site sales, buyer engagement, negotiation and transaction structuring
Client sectors: Private landowners, developers, offshore investors, government agencies, community and religious organisations, and receivers
Geographical focus: Greater Sydney, with an established background in Western Sydney