Hasta La Ideas

Movie: in our next exclusive interview from Inside Festival, Aman Aggarwal explains how his studio Charged Voids combined traditional designs with modern construction techniques to create the interior of Tashya, a high-end Indian bridal store in Chandigarh. 

Tashya by Charged Voids, a local studio founded by Aggarwal and Siddharth Gaind, won the Shops category at last month’s Inside Festival.

Aggarwal says that the idea for the interior came from the Indian fashion industry itself, where the intricate embroidery of traditional craftsmen is still used in combination with modern industrial machinery.

“The concept emanated from the approach that has been dominant in the Indian clothing industry for quite a while now,” he explains. “You have these high-power machines and looms and everything, but you [also] have these traditional Indian craftsmen.”

He continues: “It’s not the same in the construction industry [where] the artisans are losing work. So the store is actually an attempt to revive those craft practices and integrate them with the modern construction industry.”

The store interior makes extensive use of jalis, traditional wooden screens with ornate patterns cut into them.

“We started with four motifs, which are the basic elements of a lot of jali patterns,” Aggarwal says. “Then we started using those motifs on different scales. The jalis we designed, which were actually cut using a laser, were a combination of all these motifs at different scales.”

Charged Voids combined these jali screens cut using a computer-controlled process with traditionally crafted decorative metalwork. “We wanted these craft practices of India to come into the mainstream of construction,” Aggarwal claims.

The store also features a number of private lounges, where those less interested in shopping can take a break.

“Bridal wear in India is a big thing,” Aggarwal explains. “It’s always a big family affair where you have eight to nine people coming in just to select a couple of dresses. The focus was to get the people who are really interested to shop and the people who are not really interested to entertain them in a different place.”

This movie was filmed at Inside Festival 2013, which took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2 to 4 October. The next Inside Festival will take place at the same venue from 1 to 3 October 2014. Award entries are open February to June 2014.

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