Raka Studio was founded in 2018 in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, by three brothers — Saleh Ahmed, Waleed Ahmed, and Rayan Ahmed. None of them had formal training in woodworking or design. What they had was a garage, a borrowed set of chisels, and an idea about what handcrafted furniture could be.
How Raka Studio Started in Lahore
It began with Waleed. He had come across furniture made using unconventional techniques of bending wood — pieces that curved in ways that cut timber cannot, forms that seemed to defy the material. Fascinated by what was achievable through these methods, he brought the idea to Saleh and Rayan, and the three of them made a decision that would change the course of all their lives: they would figure it out themselves.
The next seven to eight months were spent learning. They reached out to local craftsmen in Lahore for guidance on the fundamentals of woodworking — how to read grain, how to joint, how to finish. They experimented in the family garage, working evenings and weekends, failing constantly and learning from each failure. By the end of that period, they had produced their first collection: four pieces, each one a record of everything they had taught themselves.
The Reception: Pakistan and Beyond
The work was received well — better, in fact, than any of them had anticipated. From the beginning, there was interest not just within Pakistan but internationally. The particular quality of what they were making — the combination of free-form bent-wood construction with a collector's attention to material and finish — found an audience that reached far beyond Lahore.
That early reception enabled the three brothers to keep going, to invest in their process, to take on more ambitious commissions. The portfolio grew: furniture, sculptural lighting, and free-standing forms. Each new body of work pushed the techniques further and confirmed what the first collection had suggested — that there was a real appetite for this kind of making.
A Collectible Furniture Studio with a Global Reach
Today the studio's work has been shown in art galleries in Shanghai and acquired by collectors and professionals in New York, London, and across the Gulf. For a studio that started in a family garage in Lahore with no formal training, the reach is remarkable. But the brothers are clear that the geography is secondary. What matters is the work itself — that each piece is made with the same care and intention as those first four pieces from 2018.
The studio remains a family enterprise. Saleh, Waleed, and Rayan are present in the work at every stage — in the material selection, in the making, in the conversation with every client. Growth has not come at the expense of that proximity. They have made a deliberate choice to remain small enough that the hand of the maker is still visible in everything that leaves the studio. You can see the full range of their work in the Raka Studio portfolio.
Bent-Wood Construction: The Technique at the Centre of Every Piece
The technique that started everything — free-form bent-wood construction — remains at the centre of every piece of handcrafted furniture Raka makes. Each commission is unique because the technique demands it. You cannot template a bend. You cannot repeat, identically, a form that was coaxed from a living material by hand and heat. The slight variations that result are not imperfections. They are the proof that the piece exists only once.
Custom and site-specific commissions are a perpetual practice at the studio. The ability to work to a specific room, a specific brief, a specific client — this is what the studio was built for. It is what the technique enables, and it is what keeps the work alive rather than becoming repetition.
The family home where it started still stands. The garage has long since been outgrown. But the studio that grew from it carries the same quality the brothers brought to those first four pieces: the willingness to begin without knowing the answer, and to keep working until it is found.