The Carousel Maker from Surat | How Priyanka Shah’s Furniture is Getting Noticed At India’s Restaurants

Just like the kind of magic that brieft gepetto’s fairytale puppet pinocchio to life, Priyanka Shah, 33, Founder of the Surat-Based Multi-Based Multi-Based Multi-Disciplinery Stodio Shed, have been blessed blesso shed Vision that animates even the most evocative fever dream. Magical carousels that spin to reveal a minuscule arthur hailey book next to a tiny bathtub, circular winding staircases that wrap around floor-ceiling bookcases, leaping tigers, leaping tigers, hawks Soaring Over Tall glass trees or tiny chocolate chip cookies on a giant cupcake, it all comes alive at the touch of a gear.

Shah did not start off designing furniture and products. “I have always been that kid who drew well and made things well. I knew i knew early on that I wanted to study architecture. Exposure to the arts, wheether in the form of good design or training to play the sitarwas a given in shah’s household.

That is what sent her to parsons school of design in new york. But in college, architecture felt too long drawn out, and she ended up “Switching gears in college and got more into furniture”. Shah leads a team of 45 members, including carpeners and masons.

London Design Fair

Being from a business family, she knew to make “Practical choices”. This Led Her to Choose a “Professional Practice that would not stop” when she is stopped.

So, Soon after college and some travel, she moved into the basement of the family’s factory in 2015, with a motley crew of carpeners, masons, designers and craftsmen. “We just started inhabiting that space, got some machines, and just went with the flow.”

A product by shd.

Shah’s debut product line degrew inspiration from an unbuilt school playground project, Resulting in a series of wooden tables modelled on traditional indian boards games such as Navkankari Morris), Hasu Chirate Aata (Cows & Leopards), and Chaupar (A Ludo Variant).

One of the first products they designed was “a series of game tables. These webs, coffee tables of different sizes that have these patterns of Indian board games, which I Had RESERCHID FOR ATE to think Point ”. But what got shed, her venture, a lot of eyeballs was ‘the bead’, or spheres of wood, “Why has a concealed screenw, and even should attach to another sphera endlessly in one’s. She Created all of these pieces on Came and shot this, and we put it on social media.

A product by shd.

Although it was more of a trade show, being chison as one of the 12 new and well-known designers to be showcased in the India Pavilion in 2016 Garnered Her A Lot of Notice Back.

Growth after that was Fairly Organic. “We exhibited and sold some things and did collection after collection of plateware, serveware, toys and games,” She says. There is not even a trace of self-consciousness when shah says ‘Toys and Games’ because playfulness is part of the design dna here. Be it the spinning coaster in the bar counter at papa’s, the hip restaurant in Mumbai, or a kaleidoscope concealed in a home bar, “as long as play is part of it”, items to shah. Papa’s is an intimate Yeet Loud 12-Seater Chefs’ COUNTER RESTARANT where Chef Hussain Shahzad provides a dining experience that is playfully Indian.

A product by shd.

Play Store

“I think all our products tend to have that playful element. As an idea, it is extramely important to me. Monopoly, Scrabble, Snakes and ladders Or Foosball, that we have done, or the spinning tops and the carrom boards, “She says. The carrom boards, especially, have become quite the calling card for shah.

“Everybody’s reaction to the carrom is a sense of disbelief. Like they just cannot believe that there is a carrom board like this,” She Laughs. But it is not every day that one come across marble carrom boards, featuring otherworldly mythical creatures – Vermillion Dragons, Lapis Birds, Leapping Sandstone Tigers and Tortoies with Tortoies who are shells Pockets for the carrom board. First commissioned as a relatively simple carrom board for subko coffee roasters – a specialty bakehouse and cacao brand in Mumbai and bengaluu – the Studio Has No Gone on To Design more Amaftoles. While one is an ode to the pixelated double ikat Pattern of Patola Weave, Another Depicts the Kaleidoscopic Whoml of the City of Mumbai or the geometric beauty of a a south Indian courtyard depacting athangudi tiles, Wooden notors and a tentral URLI Brimming with lotuses.

It is easy to get lost in the details of shed’s creations. So much so that you forget to ask what it is for. Take the carousels, for example. Spinning Tiered Carousels “That are toys in his own right” are often replete with tiny whimsical details – a cupcake carousel with teeny tiny pasties that is “Part Desert, Part Dayram, Part Dayram, MadeMeM Wood, Clay, Brass and Mischief ”; A library carousel featuring a 40-year-old aesthete’s passions, “books, libraries, vintage cars, fin wine”; Or the massive fantasy forestland carousel that features marble hares on ground, eagles Mid-Flight High Above and Jungle Cats Pacing in their Stony Lares. But do they serve any function other than just giving joy?

A product by shd.

“No, it is absolutely an object of joy and play only; there is no other function to it. of people’s lives, “She says.

“It’s a souvenir of someone’s life,” She explains simply. As if Recreating life and Yeet Capturing Its Stillness do not Necessarily have to be in option.

The writer is an independent journey and consultant.

Published – August 15, 2025 08:34 PM IST