With IKEAs of the world making a beeline to enter the Indian furniture market, there seem to be a growing trend for professional courses targeting designing, making and marketing of furniture.
Taking a step in this direction, city-based Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University has launched a post-graduate degree programme in furniture design under the Faculty of Design.
The two-year Masters in Design - Furniture Design is a skill-based programme focusing on furniture designs that are commercially viable to produce and compete with the global giants.
"Main feature of the course is that it is backed by scientific parameters such as ergonomics, structural behaviour, load transfer, materiel science among others," said Krishna Shastri, Professor and Dean, Faculty of Design.
Noted Irish designer Arthur Daff will be the area chair for the course while other faculties would include experts from furniture industry besides academicians.
Other institutes that offer specialised courses in furniture design, include National Institute of Design (NID), Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune and Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore.
However, CEPT has created its niche by focusing more on scientific aspect of furniture than merely the design aspect. "It provides students a broader vision to understand the surrounding environment where the furniture is to be placed. Factors like living environment, commercial environment, institutional environment will be taken into consideration," said Shastri.
She further mentioned that going forward the faculty looks to become an incubation centre for entrepreneurs planning to venture into furniture industry thereby providing a platform to develop their designs.
Over 300,000 are employed in the furniture industry, which is pegged to be worth over US $ 8 billion. However, it contributes merely 0.5 per cent to the India's GDP as against 20 per cent in China. The highly unorganised furniture industry has only 15 per cent players in the organised sector. The largest segment is wooden home furniture, growing at the highest pace. States like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala are some of the key states for wooden furniture.
"India is among the largest importer of furniture. Our own entrepreneurs are unable to capture that potential of domestic market. Therefore this course will help them to make high standard furniture," informed Shastri. The last date for applications is June 30 and programme is expected to being from July 20th with a batch size of about 18-20 students.
Some of the organised players in the furniture sector include Nilkamal, BP Ergo, Featherlite, Style Spa, Durian, Renaissance, Zuari among others. In 2013, Swedish Furniture major IKEA was granted approval to set up single brand retail stores of home furnishing in India with an investment of Rs. 10,500 crore.