| Episode | 3 |
| Season | 1 |
| Category | People |
| Listen | Full Episode #3 ↗ |
Episode: 3 — "How Do You Belong?" · Full Episode #3
Date: October 2019
Language: Primarily English (~85%)
Sirage Saudi (سراج السعودي) was 25 at the time of recording. Born and raised in Marbella, southern Spain. Libyan by origin. Attended an international school rather than a local Spanish school. A qualifying architect — one year from completion — who trained under Richard Rogers' studio, the co-designer of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Related to Tariq Elmeri through family.
Sirage described himself as a third culture kid: too Spanish to be Arabic, too Arabic to be Spanish. Whatever country he moved between, he never fully belonged. He attended an international school in Marbella, which compounded the limbo — not anchored to any single national identity.
When visiting Libya, locals could immediately hear the difference in his accent. He missed colloquial words, slang, TV references, humour. His parents brought him to Libya at least once a year — he credits this as the act that prevented a complete disconnect.
He found relief in meeting other Libyans abroad going through the same confusion. He had initially thought he was alone in not "getting the whole package."
Sirage's architectural philosophy centres on buildings as social infrastructure. He cited the Pompidou Centre as a defining influence: it was the only proposal out of 612 that gave away half the site for open public space, creating the lively piazza that exists today. He described the building's inside-out aesthetic — exposed structure, colour-coded pipes, the red escalator — as honest architecture.
He contrasted this with Dubai, where anyone can build anything without historic context constraints, and called out a building near Victoria, London as the ugliest he knows.
In his second year of university, the head of department told him he probably wouldn't make it past second year and suggested he reconsider his field. He described being "destroyed" — not because it was about grades, but because it was about his passion. He called his father, who talked him down. From that point he excelled. Earlier, he had hidden bad school grades in his bag until his parents found them all at once.
See: Nearly Kicked Out
An office half-marathon team at Richard Rogers' studio needed a replacement (a pregnant colleague dropped out). They recruited the new intern — Sirage — and gave him four days' notice. He had never run 10K. He survived the half marathon and got hooked. He later tricked Tariq Elmeri into his first Parkrun 5K. Tariq called Sirage's mother afterwards to thank her.
See: The Half Marathon on Four Days Notice
"I grew up in a small beach town in the south of Spain, and I'm originally Arabic — I'm Libyan. But I've always had this funny complex of being too Spanish to be Arabic, and then being too Arabic to be Spanish." (EP 3)