Cultural Intelligence
A place arrives with its intelligence already composed. Direct Create reads it at the source, organizes it into knowledge a design team can build on, and works alongside that team on hospitality, residential, institutional and publication projects. Direct Create is building Cultural Intelligence as an applied discipline; the work is the evidence.
Where are you coming from?
How the practice works
The discipline
Cultural Intelligence: the applied reading of place and culture to inform design, distinct from the individual trait Earley and Ang named.
The instrument
The Culture Stack, a place-and-purpose Study a designer builds on. It is a substrate. It is not a solution.
The method
Culture Stacking in five stages: Scoping, Fieldwork, Mapping, Argument, Edition. Non-deterministic by design.
The proof
Case studies, hypotheses, research and ideas, each carrying its argument. Never a portfolio.
The instruments
All five →
The Culture Stack
The Culture Stack is the end product of Direct Create's Cultural Intelligence practice, a place-and-purpose Study a designer builds on. It is a substrate.
Culture Stacking, the method
Culture Stacking is the five-stage process Direct Create runs to produce a Culture Stack. Scoping, Fieldwork, Mapping, Argument, Edition.
Culture Code
Culture Code is the Direct Create framework that reads every craft tradition as a language operating across three registers, vocabulary, grammar, and expression.
Case studies
All studies →
Dadar Edit
The Dadar Edit is a three-carpet commission by Direct Create Projects for Broadway Malyan's Mumbai studio at the Bandra Kurla Complex.
Bagru Code
Bagru Code names the next-stage application of the Culture Code framework to the Bagru block-printing tradition of Rajasthan, proposed as a high-resolution digitization of three hundred hand-carved Bagru printing blocks…
A luxury residential Culture Stack
Mumbai read as accumulation, with the city's textile-mill heritage and Warli folk art woven into one residential argument. The client is unnamed by agreement.
A hospitality Culture Stack
The Kodava substrate and the Western Ghats read as one positioning. In progress; the study is not yet public.
Writing
All writing →- Dadar ScapeDadar Scape is the first per-carpet essay in the Dadar Edit series, carrying the Bhadohi hand-tufted piece from the collection.
- How India's Traditional Crafts Are Building the World's Most Complex Retail RevolutionThe essay argues that India's craft ecosystem is not a preservation project but a distributed manufacturing network, coordinated across generations without a corporate headquarters, an ERP…
- How to Read a Place: Building a Culture StackThe piece is the first hub essay published under the Culture Stack canon and the relaunch essay of the Future of Tradition cadence.
- La Deco MumbaiLa Deco Mumbai is the third per-carpet essay in the Dadar Edit series, carrying the Panja dhurrie piece, an 11-foot by 9-foot flatweave.
- Maxim Bay MosaicMaxim Bay Mosaic is the second per-carpet essay in the Dadar Edit series, carrying the Kharad-woven piece, a 10-foot by 6-foot-6-inch oval.
Questions readers ask
What is Direct Create's cultural intelligence practice?
Direct Create Projects is the advisory practice of Cultural Intelligence. The practice reads culture at its source, organizes it into knowledge any design discipline can use, and works as the cultural intelligence layer alongside the design team on hospitality, residential, institutional, and publication projects. Direct Create is building Cultural Intelligence as an applied discipline; the work is the evidence.
What is the Culture Stack?
The Culture Stack is the end product of Direct Create's Cultural Intelligence practice. It is a place-and-purpose Study a designer builds on, delivered as a deck of Chapters and Exhibits. It is a substrate. It is not a solution.
What is the Culture Codex?
The Culture Codex is Direct Create's published body of knowledge in Cultural Intelligence. It is the open, growing record of how the practice reads craft, place, and tradition, hosted in the wiki and published as essays on the Future of Tradition Substack.
Is this Cultural Intelligence the same as Earley and Ang's CQ?
No. Earley and Ang's 2003 phrase Cultural Intelligence named an individual capability construct, the personal trait of functioning well across cultures. Direct Create's discipline is a different and wider thing. It is a field of applied practice rather than a personal trait, and it works at organizational and civilizational scale rather than at the scale of the individual.
The door
Rajeev Lunkad founded Direct Create and runs every engagement. Architect and designer of more than three decades, author of the Jal Mahal book, builder of the Culture Stack and the method that produces it. To open a conversation, write.
Write to Rajeev About Rajeev →