About the diploma project

The Design Brief:

To Design a range of lampshades made out of Bamboo [weaves] for architectural decor.

Why this project?

During a crafts workshop at Bhubaneshwar, I tried coming up with products that used the material and the technique of the craft, but broke away completely from the traditional feel of it. Honestly, I was quite thrilled about the things I had done there. when i started digging deeper into the field of design and crafts, i realised that this was not the only way i could go about working with this sector. during my internship, i realised that the intrinsic worth of the craft was not only the material and technique but also the tradition that backed the craft. hence, i wanted to do something where i could use tradition as the base to create contemporary products. also, i wanted to develop a craft product using a comprehensive process as i felt that a methodical and an organised approach was something that might help creating traditional yet contemporary products for today's market. i saw this project as an opportunity to deal with these notions/myths i had.

Why lampshades for architectural decor?

With the advent of globalization, certain monotony has crept into architectural spaces¹. In order to break away from the monotony, people are going back to their roots and trying to revive their cultural identity. We can look at the need for cultural identity as an advanced design trend, as a post-modern expression. Even if we try to bring about the cultural identity with industrial products, the large numbers will again bring us back to the basic problem of stagnation. This problem can be tackled very well with craft products as it has a benefit of producing larger variety in comparatively smaller numbers.

And when we talk about spaces, light plays a very essential role in creating both-spaces and atmosphere. Light is a very interesting medium to explore spaces. With the emerging need for cultural identity, luminaries can be a great entry point for craft products in today’s market.

^{1 When I look around, there are so many buildings, IT parks etc. coming up that eventually look the same. They are either large glass-clad buildings, buildings that look like oversized ventilators, or something that looks palatial. In his book” The World is flat”, Thomas Friedman has mentioned how every place has started looking the same. One can observe pockets of America in India and pockets of India in America. With globalization and international standards to be met, architectural spaces, especially multi-storeys that compete with each other to reach the sky, lack a variety/newness more often than not.}