Studio Raw Material is a rural design practice based in the desert plains of western India, founded in 2017 by Dushyant Bansal and Priyanka Sharma, graduates of the Royal College of Art. Working across objects, spaces, and cultural narratives, the studio engages with overlooked materials and vernacular construction practices to shape a design language rooted in its immediate landscape.
Their practice unfolds intuitively, and always in conversation with its context. Collaborating closely with local artisans, they work with materials such as discarded marble, paper, and bamboo—substances shaped by time and use, carrying the quiet histories of place. In their hands, these materials are revealed allowing new possibilities to emerge while challenging conventional notions of value.
A selection of their works spanning small edition furniture, sculptural objects, material investigations, and spatial interventions have been exhibited at Joints and Bones at The Aram Gallery and The Graduate(s) at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, where they were recognized among the best of European talent by Lidewij Edelkoort. Their commissions for Cartier, Christian Dior, and Hermès carry traces of this terrain. In 2021, Studio Raw Material was named Emerging Design Studio of the Year by Dezeen Awards.
Their latest series, Khokhar, were exhibited at Under Present Conditions (Friedman Benda Gallery), TEFAF, and Design Miami in 2024. Made with discarded stone, Khokhar speaks in puzzle like forms, pieces come together, fall apart, and find new configurations, echoing the unfinished, adaptive nature of rural architecture.
Studio Raw Material’s approach is contemplative, resisting immediacy in favour of slowness and deep engagement. It is a dialogue shaped not just by aesthetic ambition but by the quiet urgencies of place, people, and their resilience. They engage with design not as an isolated activity, but as something embedded in local ecosystems. Each work is part of a broader conversation about land, labor, material, and time.
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Designers We Love (2025), India Art Fair editorial team
Look No Further (2024) by Glenn Adamson for Friedman Benda Gallery