Design by Urban Matter, Inc.
All content © 2012 by Designwala
As some of you might have noticed, there has been an explosion of design related conferences and festivals that have sprouted up in India, over the last few years. Unbox is part of the mix. This year, in its second avataar it was bigger, better and shinier than the previous one. The 3 day long [...]
Public toilets have always been a big problem in India. New and innovative solutions are created everyday to solve this problem. The latest in the row of toilet innovation is the E-Toilet by a company called Eram Scientific Solutions which is a part of the Eram Group, a technology research and development company. The company [...]
This is probably one of the first articles in Designwala that encompasses design thinking outside of India. It is tough to talk about design thinking in India without looking at what services and products Africa and China are creating. Design for the developing world cannot happen in isolation and as reverse innovation takes a hold [...]
“New-Improved” is a label started by Namrata Narula, a textile designer based in Bangalore India. (She is also is a close friend and classmate of mine from college). “New-Improved” stems from the age old habit of recycling, preserving and jugaad especially amongst Indians. The idea behind the label being that there is still use and [...]
This post is long overdue. Ive been caught up with the madness that trails behind deadlines, mundane activities like getting my driving license, visas etc. In the midst of all this thankfully, I managed to have a chat with Aditya Dev Sood, Founder and CEO of the Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS). CKS is an [...]
India’s poverty line is sometimes called the ‘starvation line’ since this income based poverty line considers the bare minimum income to provide food and does not account for education and healthcare. An income of less than a dollar per person per day is defined as extreme poverty internationally. By that estimate, 40% of the Indians [...]
Tandoor is an earthern clay oven that has been used for centuries to cook and bake food in Punjab. Growing up in a Punjabi household, we never owned a tandoor given the large size and complexity of the oven that doesn’t fit modern apartment sized kitchens. However we did go out to eat a lot [...]
The practice of design research and design innovation has picked up in the past decade. Design thinking is not the forte of design related businesses alone but is being extensively used to rethink businesses that have nothing to do with design. The idea of thinking outside the box, looking at things upside down and gaining [...]
An innovative infographic on Indian classical music has earned Bengaluru student Pratyush Gupta a design excellence award at the Pune Design Fest 2012. see here
Panel discussion topic – Parallel Urbanism : local people editing local spaces Panelists – Lina Srivastava, Jyoti Hosagrahar, John Gerarci Date – Feb 28th at Wix Lounge NYC The panel on Parallel Urbanism : local people regulating local spaces addressed the topic of involvement of community in the decision making processes pertaining to their environments. [...]
