Pondicherry, India

Jayasri
Priyadharshini

Spatial Designer Material Explorer Craft Integrator Founder — Urbanpots Creator — NAD Village

Designing spaces, objects, and experiences through material, craft, and context.

I didn't set out to be a designer. I set out to build a plant store — and when no one could see what I was imagining, I picked up the tools and built it myself.

That first space taught me everything. When the budget collapsed halfway through, I stopped asking what we needed to buy and started asking what we already had. Doors came off their frames. Beams became furniture. The constraint became the design. That question — what's already here? — hasn't left me since.

Today I work across interiors, landscapes, furniture, lighting, and craft — always material-first, always end-to-end, always with the belief that every space already holds the seed of what it wants to become.

Practice Areas

What I design

🏛️

Interior Spaces

Homes, cafés, restaurants, restobars, resorts — concept-driven environments built end-to-end.

🌿

Landscape & Courtyard

Outdoor ecosystems integrating plants, stone, wood, and water as living environments.

🪑

Furniture Design

Custom and sculptural furniture — designed and built using reclaimed and traditional materials.

💡

Lighting Design

Handcrafted lighting systems using brass, wood, natural fibre, and salvaged elements.

🎨

Wall Art & Installations

Lippan, Warli, Tanjore, mixed-media relief — craft traditions integrated as spatial narratives.

🏺

Products & Decor

Botanical, handmade, and reclaimed objects designed for everyday life.

🪵

Material Exploration

Architectural salvage, old doors, wood slabs, brass, stone — a living material library.

🌱

NAD Village

A holistic design ecosystem — studio, workshop, material yard, retail, café, craft labs.

Founder & Creative Director Urbanpots · Pondicherry · Est. 2020

My Story

Not trained.
Built.

I didn't plan this. I wanted a plant store. When no designer could see what I was imagining, I stepped in and built it myself.

That first project — converting an old house in Pondicherry into the Urbanpots store — broke the budget halfway through. And that constraint cracked everything open. When we couldn't buy anything new, I started asking what was already there. The doors came off their frames and became walls. The beams became furniture. The old house told us what the store should be.

That question — what do we already have? — became the philosophy behind everything that followed.

Today, through Urbanpots, I design and execute spaces, furniture, lighting, installations, and landscapes — combining reclaimed materials, traditional Indian craft, and contemporary spatial thinking into environments that feel grounded, true, and long-lasting.

BBA in Digital Business & Entrepreneurship from IIM Bangalore gave me the strategic foundation. Five years on-site gave me the real education.

Education

BBA (DBE), IIM Bangalore

Based in

Pondicherry, India

Active since

2020 — Present

Ventures

Urbanpots · NAD Village

What I Believe

The principles behind
every decision I make

01

I re-see before I replace

The design is already there — in the material, the history, the bones of the space. I find it before I buy anything new.

02

I treat craft as structure

Traditional craft is not decoration I apply at the end. It is structural, cultural, and material — and it earns its place by working, not just by being beautiful.

03

I let constraints lead

Limitation is not the enemy of creativity — it is the engine. My best decisions have come from having no other choice. Scarcity focuses. Pressure reveals.

04

I build for truth, not trend

A space I design should feel like it could not have been any other way — like it belonged exactly here, in this material, for this person. That is what I am always working towards.

05

I stay until it is done

I stay on-site. I work hands-on. I take full responsibility from concept to the last finishing coat — because the gap between vision and reality is where most design fails.

06

I build ecosystems, not services

Urbanpots and NAD Village are not service businesses. They are systems — connecting design, craft, culture, and community into something that grows beyond any single project.

Formation

Two kinds of education

BBA · DBE · IIM Bangalore

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Digital Business & Entrepreneurship — the strategic and systems-thinking foundation that makes Urbanpots more than a studio.

2020 — Present

On-site with carpenters, artisans & craftsmen

Material behaviour. Construction logic. The intelligence embedded in traditional craft. The education no institution offers.

Ongoing

Material Research & Innovation

Reclaimed materials, mixed media systems, finish and texture testing — a self-directed practice in material intelligence.

Beyond the Work

The person behind the projects

📚

Avid Reader

Books as windows into design philosophy, cultural history, and the quiet patterns that connect everything.

✍️

Poet

Language shaped with the same care as wood, clay, and stone. Words as material.

🌱

Plant Collector

A living archive of green things — each one a conversation between nature, space, and light.

♻️

Repurposer

A deep inclination toward meaning-making from existing things. The philosophy that built everything.

Ready to see the work?

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