Featuring Stephanie Parey, Interior Designer turned UX Researcher

Host: Nujuma Ibrahim

Have you ever poured yourself into a career you thought was your calling — only to realize the passion just isn’t there? That’s exactly what we unpack in today’s episode. Nujuma sits down with her dear friend and colleague Stephanie Parey for one of the most honest conversations we’ve had on this show.

Stephanie started dreaming of becoming an interior designer at just 12 years old. From rearranging her bedroom to weekend IKEA runs with her mom, design was in her blood — or so she thought. Today she shares the slow unraveling of that dream, what it felt like to hit rock bottom in her career, and how she found her way to an entirely new field that finally felt right.

Timestamps

0:00 — Cold open / Hook: Stephanie reflects on the hardest professional moment of her life

0:57 — Meet Stephanie Parey: Interior designer, career pivoter, and today’s guest

1:33 — What drew Stephanie to interior design at age 12 — IKEA weekends, rearranging rooms, and the deeper “why” behind her childhood obsession

4:20 — Design school at Virginia Tech: the thrill of first-year studio and when the fire started to dim

5:50 — The growing disconnect: furniture history classes, late-night culture, and questioning whether this was really for her

8:00 — The Chicago Studio experience at Canon Design — and why it briefly reignited everything

9:00 — Multidisciplinary energy, real-world projects, and what it felt like to actually be in the city

13:30 — Early career reality check: from Corporate interiors to hospitality design — and why the switch nearly broke her

14:30 — Rock bottom: the hotel restaurant project, an unsupportive environment, and the depression that followed

17:00 — What it means to feel completely unsupported at work — and why that isolation is so common in the design industry

19:17 — The pivot begins: a stint in project management, calculated risks, and refusing to go back to school until she was sure

20:40 — Discovering UX research: the moment one class changed everything

21:40 — The “aha” moment: how user research connected directly to what she’d always wanted from interior design — understanding people

23:28 — Advice for anyone stuck in a field they no longer love: take small, calculated risks before making any big leaps

26:05 — What she’s carrying forward: design thinking, iteration, and seeing the bigger picture

27:45 — Closing reflection: why spaces have a profound effect on people — even if they don’t realize it

28:28 — If cities could speak: Stephanie on Seattle — local culture, nature, resilience, and a hint of the future

30:57 — Outro: careers don’t define us, and sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find out who we truly are

Enjoyed this episode? Like it, share it, and drop your story in the comments — let’s make sure no one feels alone in their journey.

A conversation with Simone on burnout, going back to roots, and building a micro resort in Jamaica

What happens when the life you’ve worked so hard to build starts to feel like it’s working against you? In this episode, host Nujuma sits down with Simone — a Brooklyn-based marketer and Wharton MBA graduate — whose pandemic-era burnout led her on a deeply personal journey back to Jamaica, her ancestral homeland. What started as a family vacation became the spark for a bold new dream: a micro resort rooted in nature, community, and reconnection.

This one’s honest, heartfelt, and full of the kind of reflection we all probably need right now.

Key Themes

* Burnout and what it really costs us

* Returning to ancestral homelands — and what it stirs up

* Nation building from the diaspora

* Designing spaces that restore rather than impress

* The power of individuals to create meaningful change

Featuring: Nmadili Okwumabua — Architect, Educator & Founder of CPDI AfricaHosted by: Nujuma Ibrahim

What if everything you were taught about African architecture was incomplete — or worse, wrong? This week, Nujuma sits down with Nmadili, an architect with a story that will stop you in your tracks. From being shut down in a design studio for daring to bring her Nigerian heritage into her work, to building a global movement for Afrocentric design, Nmadili is someone who refused to let the profession erase her identity. This one is personal, powerful, and long overdue.

In This Episode

0:53 — **Welcome to Beneath the Concrete**Nujuma sets the scene — this show exists to surface the stories and systems shaping our cities. Meet Nmadili: Architect, Educator, and one of the most important voices in Afrocentric design today.

1:55 — **”I Loved Drawing Houses” — Ali’s Origin Story**From a kid marveling at her friends’ homes in Nigeria to discovering architecture had a name, Nmadili traces her path from Lagos to Tennessee to Atlanta — and the moment everything changed.

4:00 — **The NOMA Conference That Changed Everything**In 1994, Nmadili walked into a lecture by Professor David Hughes — and walked out a different person. She’d never seen African architecture celebrated before. She went back to school fired up, tried to bring that energy into her studio project... and got shut down. Hard.

13:40 — **”A Hut Is Only a Bedroom” — Reframing What We Think We Know**We need to talk about the mud hut myth. Nmadili breaks down why traditional African compounds were engineering genius — climate-responsive, community-centered, and built from the land itself. The problem isn’t the architecture. It’s the lies we’ve been told about it.

16:57 — **Who’s Responsible for Changing the Narrative?**Spoiler: it’s not one person. Nmadili makes the case for why educators and policy makers both need to step up — and explains what intentional, Afrocentric curriculum reform could actually look like. Morocco gets a shoutout as a model worth studying.

24:32 — **Modernization vs. Westernization — There’s a Difference**A Starbucks is not modernization. Palm wine is. Nmadili unpacks why Africa hasn’t been allowed to think for itself for a very long time — and what it looks like when a culture actually gets to define its own version of progress.

30:54 — **CPDI Africa — Turning Research Into Reality**Ten years in, Nmadili’s organization is moving from exhibitions and theory into real estate. Find out what CPDI Africa is, why she launched it, and why she believes showing the world what Afrocentric design looks like — beautifully, unapologetically — is the fastest path to change.

35:28 — **If Abuja Could Speak...**Nmadili gets reflective — and emotional — sharing the untold story of Abuja’s founding, the displacement of its indigenous people, and what it means to build a capital city that wasn’t designed for the people who were already there.

Lines That Will Stay With You

“Take away my name, my food, my Afrobeats — tell me how you feel. The same thing goes for the architecture.”

“A hut is only a bedroom. It’s the collection of rooms around a courtyard that makes a home.”

“We are very wealthy. We’re just not believing it and acting in it.”

Enjoyed this episode?Leave a review, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and sit with this week’s closing question — the one we ask every guest:

If your city could speak, what would it say? What stories would rise from beneath the concrete?

What does it actually mean to build a resilient city? Not just as a concept, but on the ground, in practice, with real communities and real constraints? In this episode, host Nujuma Ibrahim sits down with Fitsum Gelaye, urban planner, architect, and senior manager at the Resilient Cities Network, to dig into exactly that.

Fitsum’s work focuses on supporting African cities as they navigate climate change, economic pressures, and the very real challenge of turning strategy into action. The conversation is honest, grounded, and genuinely hopeful.

Timestamps

0:00 – Hook: Cape Town and Day Zero — why resilience isn’t optional

0:53 – Intro: What is Beneath the Concrete and who is Fitsum Gelaye?

1:30 – Defining resilience: it’s not a destination, it’s a constant evolution

2:30 – Fitsum’s favorite project: scenario planning in Lagos with foresight analysis out to 2040

7:00 – How the Resilient Cities Network works — and why cities own their resilience strategies

10:30 – Cape Town’s resilience model: from a dedicated directorate to budget-level integration

14:30 – When strategies gather dust: what makes cities actually follow through?

16:00 – The role of political cycles, limited resources, and building buy-in

18:00 – Making the case in numbers: Lagos and the $30B cost of inaction

20:00 – Where does the money come from? Moving beyond development aid to private sector and insurance

23:40 – Cape Town as a case study: why the Day Zero water crisis became a turning point

28:00 – Lagos is also leading: resilience planning, adaptation plans, and investment portfolios

30:00 – The challenge of context: avoiding copy-paste solutions and doing the hard work of understanding place

33:00 – Peer-to-peer learning across the network: cities helping cities

35:00 – Closing reflections: hope, collaboration, and why resilience is never a finished project

37:00 – Outro: a message about what’s possible when cities center people

Key Themes Discussed:

* What resilience really means for African cities today

* The Lagos foresight workshop and planning for 2040 scenarios

* How Cape Town institutionalized resilience after the Day Zero water crisis

* Turning strategy into action — and what makes cities follow through

* Financing resilience: development aid, private sector, and creative bundling

* Why context-specific solutions matter and how the network facilitates that

If you know of resilience projects happening in your city, share them in the comments. And if this conversation gave you hope — hit like and subscribe so we can keep bringing these efforts to light.

What if the city you live in wasn't designed for you? Beneath the Concrete is a podcast that goes beyond architecture and design to explore the systems, histories, and decisions shaping African cities — and how they affect the people who actually live in them.

Hosted by Nujuma Ibrahim, the show is for anyone curious about how our cities come together and how they can better serve the people living in them.

Season One, with Episode 1 dropping on June 2nd!