Architect and designer Samira Rathod is creating handmade furniture using local, recycled materials

In a new exhibition, Samira Rathod transforms a white cube space into a deconstructed building site of sorts

While excavating archaeological sites, what’s often revealed are fragments, shards, splinters and swirls. It’s an analogy that architect-teacher-filmmaker Rohan Shivkumar, in his curatorial note, draws with Samira Rathod’s work currently showing at Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai.

Rathod, an architect with a fine body of work spanning over two decades of a practice dedicated to nuanced architecture that is intent on surprise, worked with Chemould gallerist Shireen Gandhy four years ago. “A very personal project brought us together–my ancestral home that has been habited by seven generations. Bringing in an ‘outsider’ to something that has always evolved within the family aesthetic was unusual but necessary. An aesthetic that would allow its history to breathe but also contemporise it, was entrusted to SRDA (Samira Rathod Design Atelier). The ride thereon between the architect and the family was full of surprises, and while keeping the essence of a 100-year-old home, SRDA broke stereotypes in unexpected ways,” says Gandhy. That project eventually led to an exhibition where art and design meet.

With the ongoing show Dismantling building: A Kit of Parts, Rathod is clearly having fun with materials, form and design. Edited excerpts from an interview with Rathod.

In a career as layered as yours, where does this show of furniture design fit in?

The responsibility of a product designer goes way beyond having fun with products. [The furniture] is something that is not really created with a function, but these objects have a purpose. The purpose with which we created these products is manifold. Firstly, it engaged my team, and secondly, we worked with the ideas of abstraction and beauty. We also examined our own architecture portfolio in terms of theory, abstraction and ideation to see how we could extract from that. In the end, the object has a purpose, enough to say that whilst it's not without function it does have function, even if it’s not 100 per cent [functional]. It allows you, as a consumer, to look at it, smile, have fun and enjoy it.

What kind of furniture pieces have you created?

Most of them are tables or lamps, both of which don't have a very huge burden of function. These are 100 per cent usable, despite their quirky design. You can view them like works of art, in a humorous way. At the same time, [the work] has a very serious quality in terms of its finishing; the fact that it’s handmade, in the effort that we have put into selecting different kinds of wood. It’s all local, Indian, old and recycled [materials]. [The work] is not frivolous, and while it looks pretty, fun and joyful it’s also solid in how it engages the viewer.

What is the place of beauty in your work?

There must be intrigue and it must be beautiful. For me, these are the qualities that are sustainable to the idea of a community, to simply being human. This is what we need right now. To shun something off by saying, there are so many important things to do, ‘What is this focus on beauty?’

Beauty is the most important element. We need to take care of our trees, our environment because it's all engaged with the idea of beauty. When something is made beautifully, it has to be made with a lot of rigour, both intellectually and physically, and then it is bound to generate interest, attention and care. There is no way in hell that something that has really taken effort is going to be thrown away. In that sense, [the object of beauty] is sustainable because you will retain it. It's a hand-me-down for future generations. It becomes a celebration for everyone

How important was using recycled material for the work?

The point I've always been making with my work is that you recycle [objects and materials] over and over again. Here, we were also intellectually recycling. The idea of taking architecture into an object, by scaling it down, by extracting to distil it down–it was all connected.

The element of surprise is characteristic of your work. Tell us more about how you work on that.

My architecture is definitely one of unravelling. The whole point is that every time you come back to the work, you see it as something new. With furniture, because the scale is smaller, that can be a bit limiting because my canvas is smaller.

[The surprise element] lies in the fact that you can use objects in different ways. It’s in the way the doors open, in the way the little boxes open–that in itself can be intriguing. When something is detailed it holds your attention. Attention spans [nowadays] are becoming shorter. Every time you see something, you see it for a short while. Which is why, when you come back to it, you will see something new.

Somebody asked me if I'd studied psychoanalysis [laughs]. While I haven’t studied psychoanalysis, I'm interested in the human mind. I actually believe that architecture is about invoking responses. It's very cinematic for me. You walk here, then take a turn and you see this cute little tree or the way the light will fall at six in the morning. Such elements are definitely a part of the screenplay. The surprise lies in how the knobs have been tweaked, how the handles work, how do you turn on a switch? It has to be smart and tactile.

What was the gallerist’s brief to you?

Her brief was not architecture, for sure. [Shireen Gandhy] wanted me to look at this idea of design and artistic furniture that has use. It was definitely not about art and sculpture. I would dub this work as functional art. The reason why she asked me of all the architects is because I tend to use artistic methods towards architecture. I have never seen art and architecture as separate entities.

My architectural practice is choreographed to bring in the drama. For instance, the way I use windows is very dramatic and is a view on something. I like choreographing the elements to create a kind of playfulness along with the experience.

Did you find working to fill a white cube space restrictive?

Not at all. It brought another level of dignity to the work. Because thinking out of the box and then putting that thinking box into a white pristine box–there is an uncanny connection here [laughs].

How do you go about creatively dismantling a building?

In general, as an architectural practice, we are constantly working on academic ideas.

We have three verticals: the think tank,the manufacturing workshop and in the middle is the studio. Both [the think tank and manufacturing workshop] are informed by these two other verticals, that is the intellectual explorations and experiments in the workshop. All this has nothing to do with the projects that we are currently working on.

But what it does is create a body of work, or data, that we can start using elsewhere or when the need arises. So it's not like, “Oh I have to build it all. Let me start with research for a new idea.”

Initially I was clueless. I can’t just start making objects. A few years ago, we’d done an exercise in the studio, where for the sake of exploration, we thought of examining our buildings, exploring them and seeing what kind of parts come out of it. When we explored them, I didn't want to dismantle these buildings by [separating] the doors, windows, flooring, knobs. I wanted us to look at it in a tectonic manner where you can’t identify the element. We got some amazing shapes and forms [with this method]. It was extremely intriguing and fun and led to several discussions.

I already had that kind of data with me, where a lot of these buildings had been studied. Each kind of building had 2,000 shapes and parts which were fitted together. When I say shapes and parts, I don't mean brick and mortar. I mean, when after the brick and mortar part is done, the building becomes one homogeneous entity. Then you can’t see the bricks anymore, you can’t see the actual material that's gone into the building. When you explode or dismantle the building you don't get the bricks back but you can get these shapes back. And every time a different person will [dismantle it], you get different shapesIt's an infinite process. So we looked at small objects or concepts and got inspired from them. We said, “Why can't we look at beautiful buildings to make objects by changing the scale?” We started getting ideas and elements from our own projects, ones that we brought back into the [furniture design].

What materials did you use?

Mostly different types of Indian wood and a little bit of concrete. It's all recycled from previous projects, it’s all sustainable. It was also the recycling of an intellectual idea, that everything is cyclic, almost like reversing a process.

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