Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre, CEPT University

The Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre (DICRC), CEPT University, India, functions as a research centre for the development and understanding of the traditional and vernacular building and craft practices of India. At DICRC, crafts are studied under two primary categories: SMC (Space Making Crafts) and SNC (Surface Narrative Crafts).

DICRC’s prime goal is to promote the significance of, and encourage the study of, the traditional and vernacular building and craft practices of India by means of dedicated research and innovation.

In order to do so, DICRC relies on five major focus areas: Research and Documentation (which includes mapping, documentation, research and analysis), Innovation and Development (through workshops, internship and fellowship programmes), Education and Training (by means of conducting lectures, seminars and forums to establish the role of craft in Interior Architecture at national and international level), Application and Collaboration (taking up national and international collaborative research projects), and lastly, Resource Building and Dissemination (sharing the collaborators’ process and results of all our activities on our open source platform the Building Craft Lab [BCL]).

DICRC is a conducive platform where design thinking engages with a range of crafts and traditional knowledge. It also provides consultancy services to creative persons, artisans and the interior architecture industry for the implementation of innovative ideas in the field of crafts within current interior architecture education as well as practice. DICRC was founded by Prof. Krishna Shastri (Former Director, DICRC, and Former Dean, Faculty of Design, CEPT University) and Jay Thakkar (Executive Director, DICRC, and Associate Prof., Faculty of Design, CEPT University).