Where emerging designers shape cooler, fairer, more intelligent futures.
The Godrej Design Lab Fellowship was created to support designers who are rethinking how India builds, lives, and sustains itself. Over one year, fellows work closely with mentors across architecture, craft, computation, material innovation, and social design, developing projects that sit at the intersection of climate responsiveness, cultural continuity, and new forms of making.
At Conscious Collective 2025, the Fellows present the outcomes of this year-long journey: prototypes, systems, objects, and ideas that rethink comfort, craft, community, and the built environment. Curated by Ruturaj Parikh from Studio Matter, Goa. Together, they offer a glimpse into futures where design is lighter on the planet and deeper in meaning.
Featured Projects:
01. Site Practice by Anne Geenen
A modular, prefabricated building system made with bio-based and recycled materials, wood, fibre panels, rice husk, cow dung, and more. The project explores how contextual construction, iterative making, and full-scale prototyping can redefine affordable and ecological building systems.
02. The Vernacular Modern by Abhirup Dutta & Deeptashree Saha
PAKHA, a single-blade rope-pulled ceiling fan, is reimagined for today through a contemporary motorised mechanism. Blending vernacular cooling wisdom with multi-craft collaboration, carpentry, grass weaving, leather puppetry, brass repoussé, embroidery,the project revives a tradition while inventing a new aesthetic of comfort.
03. Morii Design by Brinda Dudhat & Kabir Yadav
A hand-embroidered meditation tent shaped in collaboration with women artisans from Kutch. Every panel becomes a textile narrative, slow, reflective, and deeply rooted in cultural craft, inviting the body and mind into a space of quiet.
04. TARO Collective by Shikha Rentala, Federico Fraternale & Marco Grimandi
KADALUM, a family of lightweight portable aluminium furniture for nomadic living. Designed through Indo–Italian sensibilities, the collection responds to mobility, durability, and the evolving rhythms of modern Indian homes.
05. Ajaibghar by Computational Mama & Nanditi Khilnani
Code Drift, a city drift and audio-visual code design experience. Participants walk, listen, collect urban visuals & sound, and return to the studio to translate audio and visuals into generative visual code, creating collaborative portraits of the city through its vibrant visuals and soundscapes
06. Tectonic Assemblies Studio (CEPT University) by Maulik Oza, Neel Jain, Krunal Patel, & Karan Verma
A full-scale 1:1 terracotta wall prototype reflects their approach, where recycled and recyclable components, computational thinking, and tectonic intelligence converge to create sustainable building assemblies. With expertise spanning ceramics, deployable structures, computational design, and spatial narratives, the mentors lead students in developing modular systems that are both innovative and ecologically conscious.
Together, these works represent what the Godrej Design Lab Fellowship stands for: design rooted in inquiry, shaped by collaboration, and guided by the urgent need to build a cooler, more regenerative future.
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