Satyendra Pakhalé is an Amsterdam-based designer who was awarded the prestigious Bharat Samman by NRI Institute London and the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2013 by IIT Bombay. He was selected as one of L’Uomo Vogue Magazine’s 80 most influential creative people worldwide in Design and Architecture in 2008. Renowned companies such as Alcantara, Alessi, Cappellini, Franke, Fiam, Hästens, Magis, Moroso, Poltrona Frau, Novartis and TOD’s rank among his clients. His works are in permanent collections at prestigious museums throughout the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Pakhalé spoke to us about what he loves about design, his inspirations, his projects and what the future holds. Having worked on a wide variety of products from ceramic baskets to digital wallets and everything in between, he effortlessly straddles many things at the same time. “We are curious about life. In our view, an everyday object like a bookmark, a digital wallet and means of transport are equally important. Though the scale, utility and technological challenges in these projects vary and demand wide range of skills and expertise, they offer the same set of possibilities to create a contemporary cultural artefact with humanistic perspective. So to shift from one project to another is an everyday studio practice,” he says.
Curiosity and a deep desire to create work that is truly human is the intrinsic motivation and inspiration behind Pakhalé’s work. “Sometimes it could be an image, a thought, a conversation, or an observation of a new situation. Another important source of inspiration is the close collaboration with industries and clients. We are fascinated to create products as well as environments that evoke a sensorial feel. In an architecture project, one could have even more comprehensive control on the atmosphere,” he says.
Moonwaka, a microgravity object for a trip to the moon, is one of Pakhalé’s design projects. We ask him how he sees space tourism in years to come? “Moonwaka, a part of the larger project called Moon Life, evokes questions that are relevant today and for the future. We created a playful yet utilitarian tool that will help orientation in a micro-gravity environment like the moon. An object that will provide first-time space travellers a sense of security and direction by assisting eye-to-hand coordination in micro-gravity, making their endeavour exciting,” he says.
That wasn’t all. Pakhalé created the Pangea concept car for Renault and Philips, an early project, where he envisioned the future. “We believe design can help solve multitude of issues, particularly in high-density urban environments, to provide better services for masses by creating culture-specific design solutions through visionary design leadership. In this context, we were recently invited to give a keynote at Railways Design & Technology Conference, Cologne, Germany, on design, concept, innovation and design opportunities for large rail networks like India, Brazil and China,” says the designer.
Pakhalé’s broad body of work is unique. It ranges from technological to cultural projects. He has created site-specific artistic work such as ‘Endless Alcantara’ for MAXXI museum of contemporary art Rome, Italy. “We do not see technology as opposite of culture. The objective has always been to create work that is human, be it for an industrial or artistic context,” he says. For instance, Alcantara produces material that is used in high-end aviation and automotive interiors. “We were invited by the curator of architecture and design at MAXXI museum and the art director of Alcantara to interpret the Alcantara material in a refreshing way. The making process of the material intrigued us, to create a site-specific piece ‘Endless Alcantara’ for MAXXI, Rome, Italy. We created an endless stream, a kind of waterfall that keeps flowing endlessly, just like the process of making of Alcantara,” he says.
Pakhalé has from early on worked on explorative artistic projects besides technological and industrial ventures. He created a unique condition within the studio practice to develop works with symbolic and sensorial presence. Gallery Ammann, Germany, represents these special limited edition works that are in various public and private collections around the world. BM Horse has been a special project within this context. It took seven years of persistent design and development process, which involved combination of age-old craftsmanship with mathematical modelling, 3D-CAD and reverse engineering. “We re-invented the age-old Bell Metal casting process, hence the name B M Horse. The challenge we undertook was to create a seamless object in a metal casting process without any joint,” he says. Today, it is recognised as a seminal example of design which is archaic yet futuristic.
Future projects include work on a wide range of projects that can be broadly clustered together as industrial design, technological ventures and architectural projects. “We just launched Assaya, the centenary armchair for Poltrona Frau celebrating the 100th anniversary and Kayo Extensible Table with new compact mechanism for Fiam, a leader of Italian design manufacturing industry, pioneering the bent glass technology,” says Pakhalé. Right now his studio is engaged with innovative technological product design that could be manufactured in a new way with venture capital support. “Besides we are working on resolving the complexity of air travel and transits at mega airports and how to make it more enjoyable. As regards architecture, we were invited and selected for a public architectural project of international significance in New Delhi. These are inspiring challenges,” he says. No doubt, we will be watching him change the design landscape in years to come.