In a bid to address the ongoing climate crisis globally, the National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad has come up with the Terra Carta Design Lab on its campus.
As one of the participants of the Design Lab 2023-24 competition, the premier design institute will compete with Rhode Island School of Design (USA), Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (UAE), and Royal College of Art (UK), to produce climate sustainable projects through designing.
An exhibition at the institute will showcase various projects designed by the students. It will be on display for the public from September 21.
The steering group of this initiative from NID includes its director Praveen Nahar, Tanishka Kachru, chairperson of international programme, and Rishi Singhal, vice-chairperson of international programme, among others.
Terra Carta Design Lab
The Terra Carta was introduced in 2021 by King Charles III as part of the Sustainable Markets’ Initiative. It groups sustainability with the private sector, and pushes it into every aspect of our economy.
It emphasises a productive and sustainable future, which integrates nature, people, and the planet.
The competition focused around four crucial areas: circular economy, energy efficiency, good health and well being, and investing in nature.
NID’s exhibition
NID’s approach to the competition focused on creating integrated, just, and culturally sensitive solutions to environmental and social challenges.
Speaking on the institute’s bid for this competition, NID Director Praveen Nahar said, “Tera Carta Design Lab here is a wonderful initiative, and the idea behind it is to bring our young design talent to respond to our climate change issues and build sustainable enterprise around that.”
Speaking further, Nahar said, “This opportunity came up and we were invited by Prince Charles foundation in the UK along with three other prestigious design schools around the world. We have put our young graduates as well as senior design students behind this and there was a lot of warm response to this.”
Talking over the preparation behind the institute for this competition, NID’s International Programme chairperson Tanishka Kachru said, “Since this is a global competition, I’m also the academic lead for this, and also behind setting up the lab here. The entire process happened over a period of about 6 months where a lot of learning and creating was involved. One of the strategies that we used was to decentralise the lab, and make it not something where you physically have to be all the time because we want our young alumni to also be able to participate. So this lab became a space for mentorship as well as for accessing resources. It also became a platform where climate experts, scientists, designers, and technologists came together to provide their mentorship.”
Talking about the students’ enthusiasm for such an initiative, Kachru remarked, “A lot of them have actually worked on prototypes which are physically testing their ideas, for which they’ve also done a lot of field testing. Most of the projects are actually based on the context from the real world. For example, one of them collaborated in a way with the European Space Agency for the implementation of an idea which dealt with survival in deep space, and to find a terrestrial application for it. Another project, being worked on by a student based in Kerala, involved researching, collecting data, and developing experiments based on resources available there. It involved the Kochi Municipal Corporation who helped that student. Another project was worked on in the Himalayas, where they were working with the local organisations, and also a few local nonprofit organisations.”
The exhibition will be open for all at the NID Ahmedabad campus from September 21 to October 2, and will be open from 11 am to 7 pm for the visitors.