Ep. 267 - Rock Paper Scissors with Sagarika Suri (Case Study)

In episode 220 with Hrush Bhatt, he said, a sculptor knows his / her medium, marble, mud, or stone, and an architect knows what kind of material he/she wants, similarly, a digital product designer should know how to code, design and write copy. Today we have a guest who is a perfect blend of understanding materials and implementing them in her practice. Sagarika Suri - a practicing architect and urban designer in Mumbai. She practices small and large-scale projects through Studio Tessera based in Mumbai and dabbles with materials at rockpaperscissors. It’s a material lab for the studio to experiment with ideas and concepts on a smaller scale. Sagarika is also a part of CSA which is the Collective for Spatial Alternatives and has been engaged in self-development and low-cost housing projects in Mumbai.

Questions

1. What does material mean to you? Has that definition changed over time? How important it is for a designer to know his/ her medium? Why?
2. What is "rockpaperscissors"? Why did you start it?
3. From your research on materials, what are you trying to arrive at? Is there a goal or just exploration? Because it is said that material is just a medium. (as BV Doshi says, even RCC can be made to look beautiful).
4. What are a few parameters on which you evaluate a material? Is there a framework or set of guiding principles to identify good material versus bad?
5. You also engage in repurposing/reusing waste. Here plastic seems to be the most versatile material if used properly. Tell us about plastic and your engagement with waste.
6. Which is the most versatile material, plywood, paper, resin, concrete, glass, and cloth that you are currently working with or anything else?
7. How do you investigate the short-term and long-term implications of a particular material? If you can give any examples?
8. Can you explain the process by taking an example of any material and how has the journey been so far? What have you uncovered? How about Liquid Plywood for eg?
9. How does this help in your commercial projects?
10. What is the future of materials? Which material do you think will dominate the market? We see a lot of sustainability brands mushrooming all over. Do you think they will scale?

Reference reading

1. https://media.biltrax.com/sagarika-suri-breathing-new-life-into-construction-waste-materials/
2. https://surfacesreporter.com/architect/105/ar-sagarika-suri
3. https://syntalk.wordpress.com/episodes/turn-six/tcafg/
4. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3psCaazWtE3Kmeck0HnRiS?si=e74c7076d3a14016
5. http://studiotessera.in
6. http://studiotessera.in/rock-paper-scissor/
7. https://www.instagram.com/surisagarika/?hl=en
8. https://www.instagram.com/rockpaperscissors_bombay/?hl=en