Grassroots Architecture at the Maheshwar Handloom School

January 2015–Architectural Digest India

Australian architect and designer Sian Pascale first arrived in Maheshwar in July 2012 with a commission to convert a disused bus shelter into a handloom school for young weavers. Pascale had only recently relocated from her native Melbourne to Mumbai, where, through a series of off-hand introductions, she met Sally Holkar, the American woman who had spent the last 40 years revitalizing Maheshwar’s rich handloom traditions. “I met Sally at the Bombay Gym expecting to design a handbag or something for [Holkar’s NGO] WomenWeave,” Sian remembers. “I walked out with my first solo architectural project.”

City of Seams

December 2, 2012 – The Washington Post

The workshop is so small I can’t even step inside. Bolts of somber suit woolens and bright white shirting cottons line the walls. Rafiq Shaikh cuts a neat figure in what little space remains. Dressed in traditional white kurta pyjama (the long shirt and loose fitting pants worn by men across the subcontinent), tape measure like a doctor’s stethoscope around his neck, he stands over a length of charcoal wool hieroglyphically marked with chalk in two shades of blue – the abstraction of a suit jacket.