Blurring The Lives

Co-founders of soft-geometry, furniture designers Utharaa Zacharias and Palaash Chaudhary are working towards a gentle blend of handmade techniques with modern manufacturing processes

What brought the two of you together?

UZ: Palaash's determination that he would somehow get through college without ever writing a paper is what got us together! In 2011 we were both students in the Accessories Design department at NIFT, New Delhi and barely knew each other. We were very different kind of students - I was a classic nerd, worked alone and especially enjoyed research, theory and writing. He was a hands-on, try-everything, learn by doing experimentalist who worked in cool crowds that ended in parties.

He approached me one day with what I then thought to be the most brazen request - for me to write a paper for him. To me this was the kind of unethical rule breaking that I would never get myself into, but he convinced me that I would just be ‘helping’ him and that he would in turn help me with a shop project. I made it clear that he would have to do the research himself and that I would only help with the writing. What followed was us doing research together, him presenting his conclusions in the form of a comic strip, and me writing the accompanying narrative text. Having had the most fun anybody has ever had writing a paper, we were stupidly impressed with ourselves and committed to an unspoken agreement that we would work together on everything! Eight years and many school and work projects later, we are still convinced of our combined, imagined awesomeness!

How did ‘soft-geometry’ come about?