Exploring Design Charrettes as Collaborative Spaces for Craft Revitalization

Traditional craft practices are increasingly engaging with new contexts of making as they navigate the challenges of changing cultural and socioeconomic conditions. Prior studies have shown collaborative design interventions can enhance marketability and technical skills, but the specific socio-material dynamics and real-time knowledge shifts that occur within remain largely unexplored. This study, therefore, explores how a design charrette, structured as a collaborative making environment, can support craft revitalizations. Focusing on the traditional craft of Sholapith (Aschynomene aspera), a material used for ceremonial artifacts in Eastern and Northeastern India, the study examines its resituating into the domain of play through a collective toy-making design charrette. The methodology draws on a five-day design charrette that brought together a diverse group of stakeholders: master craftsmen, designers, educators, and children, utilizing qualitative methods, including participant observation, process documentation, and group discussions. Findings reveal that re-contextualizing Sholapith craft through play enables material meaning to become fluid and situational, while staying connected to its cultural grounding. Tacit craft knowledge functions as an adaptive resource, reshaped through demonstration, experimentation, and collective decision-making. The charrette environment enables distributed expertise and inclusive participation, suggesting its value as a model for adaptive continuity in craft revitalizations.