Furniture Design a Rare Profession
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You cannot do without them - you sit, wo
rk, eat and even sleep on them. Yes, we're talking about that essential component of comfort living - furniture. Designing furniture, therefore, is not only a challenging profession but a highly fulfilling one because the designer needs it as much as the potential customer.
As Saleem Bhatri, a Mumbai-based furniture designer points out, there is a huge untapped opportunity to create one's niche in this profession. According to him, an independent furniture designer can work simultaneously across various networks - with architects, interior designers, entrepreneurs, medium and small scale industries, craft organisations, large industries, design studios, retail, media, etc. Most importantly, this profession is a "super blend of technology and the arts".
Furniture design is a "rare" profession that he encountered when he was looking to further his architectural education with postgraduation. "Architecture itself is a vast field and there are several approaches to dealing with space. However, the object/ furniture which shares/inhabits a particular space is not in the architect's scope but is still vital especially since it provides the user with a tactile experience," he says.
For him, studying furniture design was a natural extension to his earlier education. It related to the series/ systems of objects that exist within the architectural space. "While typical household carpentry is directly associated with interior design, furniture design is linked to an industrial approach of producing objects," he points out.
After graduating from the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, Bhatri did his postgraduation from the National Institute of Design (NID). During his studies there, he went on a student exchange programme to Paris where he completed a one-year postgraduate course at ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs).
As far as work is concerned, Bhatri works across mediums/ environs. "I collaborate with architects; work with entrepreneurs and with industries. My studio includes a metal - and wood-working workshop. I involve myself in designing, prototyping and manufacturing. For me, innovation is not a guiding "word", but a reaction to the very process of evolving each project," he explains.
His advice to youngsters wanting to take up furniture design as a career is that it is a highly specialised profession, with limited job openings. Also, just being a ‘furniture' designer may not be enough. One may need to expand one's core competency in response to each project. For example, new design shops retail all kinds of interior ware, from lamps to smaller objects, and if you are working on a collection it may include all of that.
Furniture design as a profession has very few exponents and even fewer mentors so "you will need to learn mainly from your own experiences. Be prepared to tread across new territories on your own," he advises.
Ayush Kasliwal, too, is a furniture design graduate from NID and runs his outfit called Ayush Kasliwal Design Private Ltd. or AKDPL in Jaipur. AKDPL is committed to development of ideas using local crafts that have evolved over centuries. Kasliwal always enjoyed working "with my hands, and in understanding how things work, in structures and why they stand up in the first place."
Furniture design for him is a very demanding job, but once you get a hang of different materials and how they behave, it is not that difficult. One needs to have a very logical mind, but at the same time, be open to possibilities of magic! Structural integrity, purity of construction, respect of the material that one is working with, all these are things that one develops after long and hard practice. Constant innovation - at material, construction, use, cultural and aesthetic levels is very important.
Author: Vandana Ramani (HT Horizons)
Date: 29th October, 2010
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