Expert tips on integrating heritage crafts into your home design

Craft integration into interior design has now become a hallmark of her work. Most of the firm’s projects, over 100, have a traditional craft element subsumed into the design, creating rich visual narratives and infusing spaces with soul. She talks about reinventing her approach, and the serious need for bringing ethnic traditions into homes—and into the mainstream.

Beautiful Homes (BH): How would you define your design philosophy and how do heritage crafts fit into your overarching approach to interiors?

Meena Murthy Kakkar (MMK): Architecture is a lot about problem-solving, about working within contexts and environments. We have to be sustainable—environmentally, economically and socially—in our interior solutions. The unique thing that our firm does is not just look for answers from what is currently around us, but we also look to the past to find interior solutions.

As far as traditional crafts go, I have always valued them, be it art, handlooms or handicrafts. When I started practising architecture, though, I never thought to combine it with my love for heritage crafts. That study trip to Kanchipuram was very revealing. Since then, we have tried to work with a variety of such crafts in our projects. It could be something like opting for mud bricks, Athangudi flooring, lime plaster, or even Channapatna toys.

BH: How does this approach manifest itself in your projects?

MMK: One of our residential projects in Bengaluru, Kaivinai—Tamil for ‘handcrafted’—is a good example. The homeowners were keen on incorporating local arts and crafts into the home. So we dipped into heritage craft for interior solutions, which included an 8-foot-tall Kerala-style Ganesha mural. Another craft we adapted was using Channapatna toys in their raw form as partition design. We even used the clients’ old saris to make cushion covers and bed runners. There is a table with Warli art in the living room as well. But a highlight for me was the heirloom wall we created using the vintage pieces that the clients had. The idea of heirlooms has thrived in India for years, and it was something we wanted to celebrate in this project.

BH: What kind of craft intervention would you recommend for smaller homes or apartments?

MMK: Murals are a great option—there are a lot of artists in our country who do fantastic murals. You could either choose a traditional style or opt for something more contemporary, like botanical prints. It could even be a modern adaptation of a traditional mural. That is what we did in one of our residential projects: we depicted a temple procession in a contemporary style. We also did a huge Picchwai wall in another project.

Also, don’t overload your apartment with ethnic crafts. The one thing that I would emphasise is maximising sunlight. Also, avoid overcrowding and unnecessary clutter; the space starts looking very dark and dingy. Let it have a lot of light and then integrate your crafts very carefully and in selective places.

BH: Are there any easy tips to use ethnic crafts in the house without having to redo the design?

MMK: In one of our projects in Gurgaon, Anubhuti, the homeowners had already laid out the flooring in Italian marble, and we didn’t want to rip it off. So we just cut the stone along all four sides to add a beautiful border. That did the trick giving it just the right amount of an ethnic touch without being too overbearing.