FORMS OF NATURE

Kothapalli Ravi Teja Varma, the founder and creative director of ‘Web of Life’ design studio was in Hyderabad to participate in ‘Kausalyam 2026’ organised by the Crafts Council of Telangana. Ravi Teja has initiated ‘Web of Life’ an Auroville-based design practice creating sculptural objects, lighting and furniture from the intelligence already present in natural materials.

His own road into this world wasn’t a straight one. Ravi Teja says, “I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Pune, in 2019. Although my formal education was in engineering, I was always drawn toward art, sculpture, and making. Engineering gave me an understanding of structure, materials, and problem-solving, while my passion for nature and craftsmanship eventually led me to pursue design as a full-time profession.

The real turning point came during a year the whole world spent standing still. “The journey began during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. With the world at a standstill, I found myself spending more time observing nature and experimenting with materials. My first piece was created from a fallen palm trunk that I paired with naturally growing banyan roots, allowing the two forms to coexist as one sculptural seating piece. That experience changed the way I looked at design,” shares Ravi.

For Ravi Teja the main motto has been to create sculptural objects, lighting and furniture from wood and stone gathered in Nature. The most important aspect of all this process is the statement that Ravi makes, “We do not impose a shape. We follow the one that is already there.” “It is very amazing process that the natural contours of the wood or stone are not disturbed in any manner. The material used for these beautiful creations could be natural formations in black granite, coquina rock, east Indian walnut wood, jackfruit wood, Kerala green granite, coquina stone, neem wood, mango wood, rosewood, teakwood and pacific rose wood. Whether it is sculptural furniture, sculptural seating, sculptural tables, collectible objects and vessels or functional stone forms; they find their way in homes, offices or other public spaces as though they are merging with the natural surroundings,” he says.

‘Light as sculpture’ is a series of natural wood, granite, or raw silk and shapes it into objects that are ultimately meant to function as lamps — pieces that read as sculpture first and only reveal themselves as lighting once you look closer.

Ravi Teja says, “One-of-a-kind sculptures are singular works guided by found form, natural memory and the intelligence of material. Functional stone forms could be used as a Greek basin, pedestal basin, rock basin, water bowl or wood basin. Other unique creations are the ‘reflective objects’ which are mirrors treated as sculptural compositions rather than neutral surfaces.”

Talking to Ravi Teja, it’s clear the engineering background never really left him — there’s still a quiet respect for structure and material logic in everything he describes. What’s changed is the instinct guiding it: instead of designing a form and then finding a material to fit it, Web of Life starts with what nature has already made and asks, gently, what it wants to become next. In the end, nothing here is really invented. A fallen trunk, an old stone, a root that grew the way it wanted — Ravi Teja just helps each one find its way into a home. It isn’t design trying to look humble. It’s just design, staying out of nature’s way.