For SHED — a multidisciplinary design practice operating out of Surat in Gujarat, while function and form exist as primary pillars that guide their design and ideation, it is the need to capture a memory or feeling into objects that truly motivates their movement to create with unbridled imagination. Specialising in solid wood furniture, home decor, accessories, kitchenware, games and toys, they aim at building narratives through making cultural objects, spaces and experiences.
Where It All Began
The rod of inspiration can strike anywhere and for Priyanka Shah the founder of SHED it came while on a trip backpacking across Europe. It was a chance meeting in Amsterdam with her cousin (who was studying Automotive Engineering at Oxford) after she had completed her architecture course at Parsons. They got to talking and discovered that what they wanted to do was a cross-over of both of their interests. The concept of SHED was born as a place where both could create and make. Hence in 2014 SHED was conceived from the basement of their family factory in Surat that had been converted into a research and design studio for them.
What They Do
From the studio, they churned out home accessories, custom furniture, kitchenware and cultural objects. All of their endeavours and products at SHED have been a way to propagate a slow and joyful living in the midst of our chaotic, fast-paced, urban lifestyles. A way of urging others to look back at the analogue and rediscover the wisdom of the bygone eras by re-presenting it within our context.
Their practice is one that ties contemporary design with childlike curiosity as they churn out products that lie at the intersection of both. One of their products, a furniture system titled ‘Bead/Thread’ draws inspiration from traditional Indian board games like Pallanguli, Navkankari and Chaupat.
In an interview, Priyanka whose design practice is rooted in slow living and reclaiming time in a fast-paced technological world, once said, “The ethos of the Shed is not to fight or obstruct that wave, but to offer an alternative view to this phenomenon, and almost take it in our stride and control it.”
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