My project was about design and development of metal perforated training room chair with accessories. It targeted the education segment in colleges, and training room needs of IT, BPO, and banking sectors.

I started by conducting user surveys, field visits, and benchmarking products of same segment. Exploration in perforations in metal sheet, form generation with ergonomics, comfort and cost factored in would be the key assignment. To understand difficulties faced by users in actual situations due to class room interiors, faulty chairs, nature of the training etc., I conducted surveys. I also tried to understand some famous architects and their philosophy towards developing institutional architecture. Based on the entire learning, four mood boards were developed. Discussions with the marketing team, understanding business volumes and costing, the functioning of the marketing department with relevance to material and concepts were an integral part of the process. All concepts were exhausted through rigorous sketching and mock up building. Later, only a few were short listed for the final development.

While working at Godrej it occurred to me that thousands of people were actually a part of one single plan and were amazingly working towards a single goal; that of uplifting profits and the image of their company. The experience of working in such a huge organisation made me realise that each company has its own pros and cons. It would be highly beneficial to extract all the positives and try to devise solutions to obstacles systematically.