“The designer does not begin with some preconceived idea. Rather the idea is a result of a careful study and observations, and the design is the product of that idea.”
– Paul Rand
Product designing is understanding the utility of the end-user and providing a solution to the problems of the users, based on imagination, design, research, and creation. The Product Design process is a basic system that planners use to tackle issues. As we walk through each section of this article, you’ll notice that the concepts and skills required of a product designer are varied and will change depending on which stage of the process you’re at.
One such product, as well as interior designer, was Aziz Kachwalla, with more than 20 years of involvement with the product, mechanical, and interior design space, Kachwalla led a practice around experimentation with materials and structures overlaid with fine craftsmanship. He was likewise a regular colleague for different architects, designers, and artists of fame.
Aziz studied Product Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, after finishing a B.Tech degree in Civil Engineering from IIT Powai, Mumbai. Having over twenty years of involvement with the presentation, lighting, retail, and furniture plan, he worked together on undertakings of different scales with fashioners like Amardeep Behl, Architecture Brio, Material Immaterial, and MuseLAB, brands like Jindal Steel, craftsmen like Kabir Mohanty and Pranit Soi; and art festivals such as the Kochi Muziris Biennale.
The Orange Company was his design consultancy firm that did large multi-disciplinary interior design projects. His design studio-cum-workshop is situated at Mazgaon, Mumbai, and is called At-tin.
“Functionality, materials, processes, finishes, [and] details coming together holistically. No random thoughts. No hasty thinking. Always keeping people in mind and how they perceive things, how they interact with objects. Easy and simple ‘making’ processes: nothing too mass, nothing too niche.”
– Aziz Kachwalla
Not long after he graduated, Aziz pursued, rather unpredictably, “enhancements” for advertising. This included creating objects for promoting – props and fanciful things. He at that point set up The Orange Company, in what he calls was his NID aftereffect stage and chose to maintain his privately-owned company next to each other, the vehicle workshop At-tin.
The sequence of occasions is hazy and insignificant to him; one of only a handful of things that he doesn’t detail out. He has worked for modern partnerships just as a way of lifestyle clothing brands, at the same time planning bespoke furniture for interiors. The practice currently is a blend of self-started and commercial yet consistently client-driven. His ideology revolves around the fulfillment of the requirement provided by the user, which is the main aim.
With the ready accessibility of products of varying quality, fitting the pockets of various purchasers, the need among creators for comprehension and testing materials involved is gradually disappearing. The word collaboration is likewise broadly misjudged; it doesn’t mean the demonstration of the accompanying guidance – one gathering is the instructor and the other, the seller.
The aspects of expertise, information trade, and equity are fundamental in joint efforts. Aziz Kachwalla is, hence, an extraordinary, expert designer, and an associate whose simplicity of getting materials, engineering, designing as well as prototyping serves the design of items itself.
“I don’t design unless I have investigated enough of how I would interact with the object and used it myself.” The belief that one has to “be the user”, dictates Aziz’s design development process. What happens when you can’t imagine yourself as a user? Time, cost, and client are factors that play a heavy hand but at no point does he lose sight of the user.
Space or studio in which Aziz worked was a double-height structure, dirty, imperfect yet genuine stockroom dismissed workshop wrapped up one of the paths of Mazgaon, Mumbai. It has nothing to hide, no untruths or pretense, like the idea of the design it is home to. Looking like a performance center behind the stage, pieces are tossed about the space however upon perception, the emphasis on understanding every material is difficult to miss.
There is a strong feeling of accuracy and control in Aziz’s work, and a natural logical rationale, that comes from his designing curve of the brain. There is additionally a self-driven curiosity to learn about the material back to front and play with it without limiting it to business briefs, that drives the practice.
For example, the basic persistent flexing of materials which can be seen across a portion of his small and large scale work: every one of these testing and pushing the limits of the material like a guide would push a protégé – never too brutal to even consider breaking, yet exceptional enough to draw out its center strength.
Simultaneously, a couple of high-quality bent metal and cane furniture pieces radiate warmth and sentimentality as they look grim and comfortable, the clarity mirroring the free psyche of the designer and profound enthusiasm for materials. Since each piece is hand-tailored there is the factor of time, which he says his client base is made mindful of, and after agreeing, work commences.
On the 14th of January, 2020, Aziz Kachwalla met with a disastrous and deadly mishap. Aziz Kachwalla’s work stretched the boundaries of material comprehension through an included and iterative design, for objects that he regularly co-composed with architects and designers his firm worked with.
His work showed an instinctive handle of the idea of materials he worked with, and he was regularly instrumental in the improvement of conclusive subtleties for complex plan issues in items and spaces. A logical and textural appreciation empowered him to make natural and dreamlike items, radiating the trustworthiness from which they were considered.
