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Design and Innovation Center

Enhancing and Sustaining the Intangible Heritage and Reinventing the
Design Paradigm through Encompassingand Expanding Education
Introduction

India has a vast treasure of artistic expression practised for centuries in different social and cultural
context, and in various geographical locations across the country. Traditional arts and crafts still
continue to define the cultural practices, social processes and economic sustenance of the
community, who struggle to uphold their living tradition in the midst of modern transformation. Despite
historical changes, technological advances and globalization, Indian art and craft continue to entice
and fascinate people around the world. However, there are many art and crafts forms which have
been extinct due to lack of awareness and knowledge transfer. Today the artisans are struggling for
survival, when many have moved away from their traditional occupation and some cling desperately
GO TO TOP (/DESIGN-AND-INNOVATIONwithout any indemnity of a consistent livelihood. Preservation of Indias cultural diversity and
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strengthening the economic vitality of the artisans community are important in the present scenario of
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modernization,
economy and desire to increase the production, which is leaving very little space for
many arts and crafts forms to survive.

The Design and Innovation Centre is envisaged to function as a centre of

learning and innovation for contributing towards promotion and enrichment of
traditional arts and crafts in the South Eastern parts of India. School of Planning
and Architecture, Vijayawada (SPAV) is located in the region known for its rich
traditional design, such as Kondapalli and Ettikopakka for toys, Pedana and
Mangalagri for textiles, Sri Kalahasthi for its wooden carvings and Dharmavaram
for its unique leather puppets. Each district of Andhra Pradesh is unique in terms
of Design culture and comes out with typical design for sarees such as
Bhimavaram, In addition, SPAV has identified the unique heritage, art and
handicrafts of neighbouring states of Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
SPAV intends to lead this traditional art to the next level without changing its
identity, and create a knowledge base and platform for artisans and students.
There is another viewpoint that triggered the rationale of establishing a Design
and Innovation Centre is the significant transformation in design vocabulary,
brought about by accelerating technology and emphasis on interdisciplinary
demand of a new age for both learning and practice. Digital experience in
designing and human/ computer interaction have modified the language and
approach to design. There is a need for education that is grounded in tradition,
while directed at the future. The Design and Innovation centre aspires to
integrate education, industry and tradition by engaging with artisans, exploring
crafts transformation through technological and design intervention and
promoting livelihood sustenance through marketing, while preserving the cultural
identity. Special targeting will be done for women crafts persons, and
underprivileged groups.
Design Centre: The Gateway to Revive, Relive and Reinvent

Design is a field of creating great products and services that delight, inform and
fits human needs, and enhance living style. Design is exciting because it cuts
across all disciplines; the arts and humanities, the social, physical, and biological
sciences, engineering and business.
The Design and Innovation centre seeks to develop integrated programs, combining design programs
with engineering, business and culture. Designing is GO
envisaged
as a transformative process based on
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 Design
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Thinking:
ensuring value
judgment
in
design.

Integrative:
blending
of
heritage,
practice
and
theory
in
education by
cutting across
and
encompassing all disciplines.

Human-centered: focusing on social and behavioral sciences, assuring that people and technology
work harmoniously as collaborative players.

Objectives

To explore, enhance and sustain the traditional

arts, architecture, crafts and culture of the
Southern and Eastern region of India.

To develop design resource unit, that will

extend services to industry and use emergent
technologies to meet the market demands by
providing hands-on experience on innovative
methods and use of alternative material and
techniques.
To create an incubation cell that would equip
artisans, amateur designers, young craftsmen
and our students with essential knowledge and
skill.
To promote holistic development of the artisan
community through knowledge enhancement,
exposure, employment generation and creation
of avenues to connect and disseminate widely.

To establish state-of-art research facilities, and

develop technical expertise and academic
diversity for understanding different areas of
design and create opportunity for higher
education in design at the masters level.
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Preservation,
Innovation, Education and Artisan Community Collaboration
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The Design and Innovation Centre Initiative

Traditional arts and crafts are primarily an occupation, which needs skills, creativity to imagine,
visualize and create. The product has two aspects; the material, such as colour and motif, and the
symbolic which the product signifies. The first aspect has to do with the technology of the object, and
the second is about culture of the people. Both these aspects are not static, but evolve with time. So,
innovations in this field are required to sustain the living heritage through the passage of time, by
focusing not just on old technologies and design forms, but on the people of today and the
community, who are bearer of the tradition and carrying forward the legacy.
As a national institute, SPAV endeavors to take up the social responsibility, and address the local
demands and needs in the field of Design, Planning and Architecture. A Design and Innovation
centre is perceived for carrying out research and development on traditional arts and crafts in the
Southern and Eastern region of India. In addition, this centre will serve as a resource and knowledge
centre, which will provide incubation and training to artisans, designers and students in the above
areas.

SPAV has already interfaced with MSME clusters of Kalamkari association at Pedana and Sri
Kalahasti, Kondapalli and Etikoppaka toy makers association and other crafts villages in Durgi,
Dharmavaram (Andhra Pradesh), Raghurajpur (Orissa) and other places. Similarly in terms of culture,
Krishna District is known for its famous Kathak dance, Gotipua of Raghurajpur, which SPAV intends
to integrate with various art forms. The significance and importance of these crafts and culture need
to be seen from the larger perspective. It is noteworthy that the toys, fabrics and other articles made
in these regions are eco-friendly, non-toxic and have a lower carbon footprint. Since the current
market is looking out for such unique products, this craft when enhanced to meet the international
market through technology and market oriented design intervention shall change the livelihood of
artisans towards positive direction. So it is needed to carry it forward to regenerate our heritage by
establishing links between artisan community, design education and industry.

Design Cycle

A vehicle for Heritage, Research and Industry

SPAV intends to create a Design cycle conceived as a
vehicle to traverse through the heritage spine of traditional
art and crafts of Southern and Eastern India with its in-house
resource along with the support of other institutions.

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Design
Drivers
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A team of Artisans, Students, Faculties and Professionals

India has an enviable inheritance of crafts with over 12 million artisans and more than 500 craft
clusters. The skill and ingenuity of Indias artisans has found appreciation and patrons around the
world. While our craft traditions and techniques date back to centuries, even today master craftsmen
and artisans work with passion and commitment carrying forward the legacy of generations, creating
handcrafted products that are unique, exceptional and precious.

The vision of SPAV is to drive the School towards sustainable practices and evolve a knowledge
base that is progressive and dynamic as well as impart and disseminate strong principles of
education and research that is not only state-of-the-art, but also grounded and inclusive of local
contexts. Design as a discipline has the potential in various aspects and has immense contribution for
providing balanced and sustainable life. SPAV strives to achieve its vision through its talent resource
by collaborating with allied professionals, and most importantly by engaging and connecting with the
artisans at the Design and Innovation Centre.

Design Geographies

The traditional art and craft forms of Southern and Eastern areas of India
SPAV is located in the mid of the South Eastern coastal belt, which is richly endowed with these
intangible heritages. The Centre will focus on revitalization of traditional arts and crafts in the South
Eastern coastal region of India, with the scope pertaining to five states namely Andhra Pradesh,
Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

Among the art and crafts forms such as

wooden toys and carvings, Kalamkari art
and leather Puppetry, Andhra Pradesh
has unique designs of handloom sarees.
Many districts of the state have their
unique designs of handloom sarees, such
as, Pochampalli sarees of Nalgonda
district, Mangalgiri of Guntur, Upada of
East Godavari, Venkatgiri of Tirupathi,
Dharmavaram of Ananthapur and
Kancheepuram of Chengalpattu have
earned fame throughout the country and abroad. These art forms will be researched in the centre.
Tamil Nadu is the land of temple towns, classical music and dance, and art and craft possessing
religious reflections. The state is known for its arts and crafts. Stone and bronze carving of
Kanchipuram and Mahabalipuram, Thanjavur paintings, wood carving and gold claddings, and palm
leaf artefacts of Ramanathapuram and Pullicat are rich treasure of intangible heritage found in Tamil
Nadu. These design forms are considered to be important, and shall be taken up by the Design and
Innovation Centre.
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Odisha is known for its unique and exquisite Odishan style of temple building. The major crafts of
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Odisha

The Pattachitra paintings, palm leaf engravings, papier mache work and cow dung toys of
Raghurajpur near Puri are traditional art forms practiced by the inhabitants for over centuries. Stone
carving, coir craft and coconut shell carving are exquisite art and craft works of Odisha, which has
earned profound appreciation.

Kerela is known for its metal, wood and coir crafts along with exquisite designs of lamps made from
different materials. The paintings and stone and wooden sculptures are unique to Karnataka, which
are worth documenting.

These art forms will be studied and the artisans will participate in the teaching and learning process
at the Design and Innovation Centre.

Design Research

In earlier years, designers were trained in form, function, materials, and aesthetics.
Today, culture and emotion are central, plus knowledge of societal issues, techniques
for finer application and understanding of the intricacies of complex, interdependent
systems are important in the context of design education. There is now a great need to
add more emphasis on the findings from the history, social sciences and engineering
into the theory and practice of design. Designs purview has widened from its historical
focus on artifacts to its new, expanded role in developing services and experiences,
and improving sustainability, health, and education.

The theoretical foundations of interaction design, user experience, and humancomputer interaction provide solid, useful theories and principles, but with little
understanding of the aesthetics and traditions that characterize good design. In order
to expand, design needs better tools and methods, more theory, more analytical
techniques, and more understanding of how art and science, technology and people,
theory and practice can mingle effectively and productively is required.

The proposed Design and Innovation Centre is conceived as a research destination and center for
advancement of skills with the application of modern scientific and computational teaching methods.
The centre is likely to generate huge data related to arts and crafts. To store the data and to develop
contemporary applications of the arts, high performance computing systems are required. The
proposed centre will use design simulation software which requires high speed and good graphics
cards for three-dimensional rendering and 3D printing.
The primary aim of this centre is knowledge transfer between students and artisans. Hence, outreach
programs play an important role. The centre shall come up with an effective curriculum for offering
Masters Degree in Design.

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Action Plan

The focus areas of the design and Innovation centre

1. To exchange the knowledge base between traditional artisans and students

2. To extend these traditional art to other applications

3. To upgrade the working conditions and maximizing the profit for the artisans
4. To innovate semi-mechanized tools to enhance the production process

5. To sustain the production process for the continuous livelihood of the artisans

6. To train our students at Masters Level in Design (Product and Industrial Design)

To achieve the above objectives list of initiatives are proposed in three phases. It is proposed to take
up the Design and Innovation Centre in three phases for the duration of two years and each phase is
divided into the duration of 8 months. Phase I involves the base work such as collection of raw data,
setting up of permanent laboratory, organizing workshops & national level design competitions,
capacity building programs etc, Phase II focus mainly on measures to increase the production
through innovation of semi mechanized tools. Further, during this phase it is proposed to empower
the nearby villages (ICT usages) through integrated village development programme. The last phase
focus on application of these traditional arts and crafts to suit the contemporary needs. By the end of
this phase it is also proposed to establish a Department of Design at SPAV.

Conclusion

For the Design and Innovation Centre to succeed, grow, achieve its potential, and train future
designers, a centre is envisioned that is strongly rooted to tradition and yet is a dynamic cycle of
heritage, research and
industry, which will be acquiring scientific knowledge, understanding of experimental methods and
rigorous reasoning, and continue the process of innovation to carry forward the vision of SPAV.
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Menu & Innovation Centre

Design

Published 2015
By School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada.
Sy. No: 71/1, NH 5, Nidamanuru,

Vijayawada - 521104,
Krishna District,
Andhra Pradesh, India.
2015 School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada.
Photos: SPA Vijayawada collective
All rights reserved.
Attachments:

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Design and Innovation Center (/attachments/article/191/SPAV Design

and Innovation Center.pdf)

[School of Planning and

Architecture,
VIjayawada]

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