Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology

This is a 15-day training and design development project with terracotta potters. It is Srishti's first project with the Development Commissioner Handicrafts - Ministry of Textiles. The dates the workshop was 25 February to 18 March 2010.

The production was carried out by 30 skilled terracotta artisans who worked at Srishti main campus.

The project lead, Sudipto Das Gupta, faculty at Srishti, worked with the artisans on collaborative concept generation. The basic theme for the products was collectively decided with the artisans as being part of a "Micro Kitchen" as there is a growing need for components for the micro family and single householders (bachelors). The kitchen is an important part of this culture of living.

This demographic group is rapidly moving towards high tech gizmos that are resource heavy to produce and their redundancy generates huge quantities of non-recyclable waste. The other alternative is packed food and takeaways which in other ways are proving to be hazardous to health and the environmental - food, packaging et al.

Terracotta being a naturally available resource/planet-friendly material can be positioned here to provide a few solutions. Terracotta is water and heat resistant and lends itself to limited batch production capabilities, making it an attractive option to small and experimental innovators.

The first 2 days was spent preparing the clay and some exploration of form, and then some concept generation on the following products. Some of them belong to the "micro kitchen". Some are closely related:

- Mini Oven
- Mini Grill
- Fuel Saving vessel
- Terracotta Dry Pan
- Water Jug
- Bird bath and Water Hole
- Keep Warm Vessel
- Clay Baking Vessel
- Charcoal Sandwich Toaster
- Mini Pizza Maker
- Coffee Mug Keep warm (Cozy)

Some of them are new and some are existing concepts modifyed to suit the micro kitchen. Criteria - they all need to be made primarily of terracotta, Some accessories may be added like readily available metal vessels or iron rods, grills, etc.

The focus of the workshop was in production - quality and speed - and related facilitative efforts. There was also an emphasis on packaging which is not just creating the "box" or packet but also on how to accessorise the products for easy marketing.