DESIGNER
INDO-
MATERIALS
Wood, Metal
Location
Providence, Rhode Island
Type
Studio Visit
Contact
Each piece made by partners Urvi and Manan from INDO- tells a story of the unique blend of their Indian heritage and American design sensibilities. From starting their design journey at RISD to establishing a studio together, they bring a commitment to experimentation and handmaking their works that is refreshing and seen throughout their collections. From visiting their studio and flipping through some of the inspirations for their pieces, we are excited to see the new ways their identity comes through in their designs.
What was your first interaction with design? What made you come all the way to Rhode Island to pursue furniture design?
I’ve grown up around design in a very unconscious way. My mother is a graphic and interior designer whose office was at home, so I would spend hours after school bothering her employees and hanging out with books on every subject from packaging to type and layout. I took all of this for granted until my mom saw that I had potential and pushed me to come to RISD for a summer program in high school which changed everything for me. Once I finished that, I made the decision that this is what I wanted.
You guys have worked together through a number of environments including school, post grad jobs, and now your own studio. How has your work relationship and roles in creation changed over time?
When we started working together as students, we acted as helping hands for each other, especially for school projects where one of us would bite off more than we could chew or wanted to try something but didn’t have the experience for it. As we grew INDO-, we worked more like sounding boards for each other, with one of us presenting an idea, receiving feedback and then going back and forth in the creative process.
How does the attitude and design sensibilities of where you grew up in India compare to here in Rhode Island/America as a whole? Are there South Asian design philosophies that you’re imbuing your works with?
There are definitely some sensibilities we grew up with which present themselves in the work we make, for example working with natural materials but also thinking holistically about sustainability past the material nature of a product. It’s interesting to see how design sensibilities in America are more process based, taken from manipulating a certain material to do incredible things and then figuring out an application whereas in India there is more of an emphasis on the end product looking a certain way and coming up with creative solutions to achieve it.
Your heritage is obviously a central part of your studio’s identity. What are the different ways you get inspirations and ideas from your culture to turn into a design, and what is the process like of translating these ideas to actual pieces and collections?
A lot of this process is actually going back to the things we’ve grown up with and around that we took for granted for so long and trying to understand for ourselves what makes them special or unique to our identity. For example, we both grew up watching old Indian movies but I never paid much attention to the costumes and jewelry till now. Or the heirloom pieces hidden under beds that are just waiting to be rediscovered and appreciated by a new generation. We’re taking these bits of history and using themes or elements we find interesting to then come up with a collection that can communicate it to an audience that may not have experienced them but can appreciate them.
When you have an idea, what is the process of bringing the design to life? Do you start by sketching things out first?
For Manan, he prefers discussing ideas verbally first and then putting them down once decisions are made whereas I am not a great visualizer so prefer drawing or playing and putting things down on paper so I can see everything outside my head. It’s almost always a mix though, and there’s no clean way to be creative.
You have a wide range of materials you use for your different designs. How do you learn to work with these different materials and experiment with the way they function? For example, we noticed a patch of chainmail you were playing around with in your studio when we visited.
A lot of play! It’s incredible how unapproachable a material can seem until it’s in your hands and you can do what you want with it. For example, I never thought we’d work with metal but right now, it’s my favorite because it’s so forgiving in terms of finishing. The chainmail was a special request from a customer to incorporate into our mirror and was new for me, so I was experimenting with how to reinforce the edge to make it more stable.
A lot of the work you do is custom work. Is there an interaction between experimentation in the custom work you do and the ready-made pieces, whether it’s something like adopting ideas and changes that clients have for their furniture?
Half our portfolio is custom work! We’re constantly working on new ideas and problems to solve with designers and when we feel like this must be a problem more than one person is having, we add it to the collection. Our first Pilar Demilune Console was initially a trade show prop we created to give the Mooda Mirror context and a place to put business cards, but soon enough I heard whispers that designers were looking for tables suitable for narrow NYC entryways, and I knew we had something.
Since this is a Rhode Island/Providence series, we wanted to ask: Who are some of your favorite Rhode Island designers you’d recommend our readers to check out?
So many!! This is a tight community, and we’re constantly meeting new folks doing creative things or helping people be creative. There’s Villa Savoia, O&G, Ben & Aja, Studio Dunn, Lindquist, Tracy Glover who have been here for years, but there’s also an amazing amount of young up and coming designers who have decided to make Providence their city. There’s Work in Use, Kutty Knives, Becca Ford, Studio Ayumiya, and Steven KP to name a few.