Designers To Watch Out For In 2018: Arjun Rathi

Growing up he always wanted to be an architect and he pursued his passion after school and graduated from architecture in 2009. “I started my practice in 2012, and it slowly evolved into a multi-disciplinary one that deals with architecture, interiors and products,” shares Arjun Rathi, the ethos of whose eponymous label is experimental and a concept-based approach along with a strong passion to deliver.

He wholeheartedly believes that zeal is everything, and talking about projects he holds close to his heart, he says, “I am attached to most of the projects and designs the studio produces as all our works have stories behind them and generally emerge after a lot of thought. The piece that I’m currently partial towards is the Ambassador Desk Lamp — it was the first lamp that I’d made as a gift for a close friend, and in a way, it marked the start of the journey into lighting and furniture design for me.”

At his experimental studio, Rathi’s work encompasses a variety of materials and processes and aim to apply them differently. “One of the recent materials we’ve been very fascinated with has been blown glass. The process of production is extremely poetic, as it’s an amalgamation of fire, molten glass and gravity. Even the colours in blown glass have a surrealistic deep saturation, which is unique to the material,” he says. Someone who enjoys reading graphic novels, indulging in meditation and traveling the world when not working, Rathi looks forward to expanding his work out of the metros into tier 2 and tier 3 cities and is presently working on restoring a 100-year-old colonial building in South Mumbai.