Wicker story is the name of an initiative by architect Priyanka Narula and her firm, Hyderabad-based Prelab Design Studio.
“The project was a response to a prolonged quest to define the future of design in the Indian context,” Narula writes. Additionally, she asked herself: “How do we realize algorithmically complex forms without the industrial infrastructure that computational design typically demands?”
Narula has thus combined computational design with traditional Indian wicker craft:
Our work involves the translation of digital processes for complex designing for easy adaptability to Indian craft and material systems. Wicker story, apart from being an effective tool to realise customized and complex geometries, also transcends scale and geometry and defines new protocols for design.
Wicker is a woven system, like cloth. You can weave wicker for meters and meters.
Our products are 100% sustainable and offer a zero waste production methodology.
We are constantly attempting to create a symbiotic amalgamation of art, architecture, product in the precinct of craft and parametric design methodology and thus celebrating the context of culture, colour, tradition and values in India.
Working with craft goes beyond the design. It creates opportunities for sustainability, local labor and material innovation to evolve together.