Projects
  • Field research
  • Object
  • Making

Kera

An experimental seat made in South India from coconut-related resources. The project began during a journey, observing how an everyday resource can become material, structure, and narrative.

KERA works with what the place makes available: physical trials, real constraints, and a form built more through making than through a fixed drawing.

The seat is tested in the place where it was built.
The seat is tested in the place where it was built.
Type
Material-led seating prototype
Place
South India
Material focus
Coconut-related resources
Role
Research, concept, making, documentation
Question

How can a place suggest an object before a final drawing exists?

Context

KERA begins with travel as a research method. Coconut is not treated as a simple image of the landscape, but as an everyday material system: food, water, fiber, shelter, structure, gesture.

Process

How it was built

  1. 01

    Observation of available resources and the ways they are used in context.

  2. 02

    Direct experimentation with curvature, resistance, support, tying, and stability.

  3. 03

    Field construction, accepting real constraints and available tools.

  4. 04

    Documentation of the seat as both object and trace of process.

Outputs

What came out

  • Full-scale seating prototype
  • Field prototyping process
  • Material observations
  • Photo documentation
  • Project identity
The knot and joint tell more about the project than a clean product view.
The knot and joint tell more about the project than a clean product view.
The object remains legible as a temporary, light, site-specific structure.
The object remains legible as a temporary, light, site-specific structure.
Studio documentation isolates the profile and behavior of the form.
Studio documentation isolates the profile and behavior of the form.
Making happens through physical trials and progressive adjustments.
Making happens through physical trials and progressive adjustments.
Why it matters

KERA does not try to import a solution. It works with a condition: what the place makes possible, what resists, and what allows itself to be transformed.