Story of Schools of Design Worldwide

From Victorian grain warehouse to factory-chic campus, take a peek inside these stunning schools of thought that are creating tomorrow's design masters.

From Philippe Starck's dreamlike product design to Zaha Hadid's curvaceous building forms, the world's most acclaimed design schools have constructed our world with built environments on six continents. Not only have these schools of design produced iconic alumni, they've even spawned full-fledged movements, from Bauhaus modernism to Scandinavian minimalism. It was in the corridors of Design Academy Eindhoven that Marcel Wanders' then-blaphemous Knotted Chair was conceived, and it was in the corridors of the Rhode Island School of Design that Airbnb was conceived when three students envisioned the potential to reimagine the rooms for hospitality. These are 10 sanctums of holy corridors, sometimes within miraculous structures of architecture themselves, where destinies are made. 

Royal College of Art, London, UK

The RCA has served as a platform for design heroes, from James Dyson to Thomas Heatherwick.

Herzog & de Meuron (2022 completion) Battersea campus boasts a striking skinnable-brick tower with angled cut-outs for sunlight pouring into studio space. Dating back to 1837, this campus school is famous for being the first time a multidisciplinary curriculum was incorporated into its curriculum, incorporating art, design, and technology and opening doors onto the first design interaction course to explore human and computer interface interaction that went on to inform everything from smartphone screens to car dashboard systems.

 Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands

With the enduring influence of Dutch fashion on current style, it's no wonder that among the world's best schools of design is located in the Netherlands.

Design Academy Eindhoven is perhaps one of the riskier options provided, and rich soil for fresh talent and creative thinking. Consider Drift Studio, Formafantasma, and the entire Dutch Design Week celebration, it's where concepts are so in your face because they're an epiphany. It is only appropriate that it assumes the space of the former Philips light bulb factory redeveloped as "De Witte Dame" (The White Lady), a modernist icon redeveloped in 1927 by Dirk Roosenburg and restored in 1998. The academy founded in 1947 has Marcel Wanders, Maarten Baas, and Piet Hein Eek among its graduates. Practice of DAE theory has played an important role in providing Dutch Design with its own distinctive mix of experimentation, minimalism, and functionality.

Rhode Island School of Design, New York, USA

Who first comes to mind when one considers the best school of design of the world is New York's Rhode Island School of Design.

Social environment is impacting Parsons School of Design's social influence. Established in 1896 as Chase School at Fifth Avenue and later consolidating with the New School in 1972, it currently boasts buildings such as the Joseph Urban Building and the University Center by SOM in 2013 with its typical brass-shingled exterior and arched glass windows. Parsons hired style icons Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, and Alexander Wang to fashion and revolutionized the education of fashion with the first program in fashion design, bringing an artisanal approach to an academic subject through the utilization of scientific pattern-making and construction methods. ÉCAL (School of Art of the Canton of Lausanne), Switzerland This is a former stockings factory with an uncertain past it would rather forget, but which now hosts the headquarters of ÉCAL, renovated by architect Bernard Tschumi (2007) so that an industrial building present can be open to being remobilized as far as creative synergy.

It was founded in 1821 and has seen designers such as Ronan Bouroullec and Adrien Rovero pass through its doors, with particular note along the way being made of its groundbreaking digital fabrication. Our Editor selects to emphasize:.

ÉCAL transformed furniture design production processes, and its research laboratories pioneered some of the first uses of robot manufacturing in architectural products. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA If arguing that the world's finest design school is Providence-based New York-New England's Rhode Island School of Design, one is immediately impressed by.

Established in 1896 as the Chase School of Fifth Avenue, subsequently merged with the New School in 1972, it currently consists of buildings such as the Joseph Urban Building and SOM's University Center in 2013, whose brass shingle facade imitates the building and with sturdy glass windows. Parsons debunked and dispelled myths regarding fashion design professionals such as Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, and Alexander Wang and mapped the fashion students' learning process anew by creating the very first curriculum in fashion design, analyzing an art of trade into a course of study with linear pattern-making and construction procedures. Politecnico di Milano, Italy Politecnico di Milano philosophy is in its walkway wherein the new buildings are being incorporated into conversation with the old buildings. It was established ages ago in 1863 when Milan design firm expanded and students were literally neighbors to Salone del Mobile with legendary firms like Alessi and Kartell walking distance away.

It is a special environment and one that is populated by the likes of Achille Castiglioni and Gio Ponti.

Their contributions – the contributions of thousands of Politecnico graduates – took ordinary items from office chairs to coffee machines and transformed them into intelligent tools for the good that became lifestyle in Italy and made Milan a world design capital. Aalto University,INK. Helsinki, Finland Formed in 2010 through the merger of Finland's Helsinki University of Art and Design, widely respected (founded 1871), Alvar Aalto and Eero Aarnio are among the alumni. Väre Building, Verstas Architects (2018) is Finnish design excellence achieved through the subtle fusion of wood, concrete, and light via an atmospheric atrium.

Its people-focused nature and sustainable ethos, Aalto University is resplendently Nordic design instruction.

The university has an inter-disciplinary co-operation environment where design and architecture students are instructed to employ both the conventional and the newer tools. RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Sean Godsell Architects' Design Hub (2012) features a motorized glass disc revolving facade with control of solar gain that creates dynamic patterns. RMIT, dating back to 1887, has had renowned alumni like industrial designer Marc Newson. RMIT initiated practice-led design research methods, subsequently taken up by schools globally, transforming the production and distribution of design knowledge with its initial school of design research. Central Saint Martins, London, UK

One of the cornerstones of Britain's design capital, Central Saint Martins in London has a cherished teaching faculty of design legends: from design genius Thomas Heatherwick and furniture gods Terence Conran and Mathilde Wittock to fashion royalty Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Stella McCartney and Mary Katrantzou.

King's Cross is upstaged by Central Saint Martins in turn, which dominated the remodeled King's Cross area when Stanton Williams Architects converted a Victorian grain warehouse into a beacon campus for the arts in 2011. The dramatic, point-of-punctuation "street" cuts across the Granary Building to create an open public promenade with gallery exhibitions and glass-wall studios – literally echoing the school's passion for cross-fertilisation of the mind.

As it has been in use since 1896 when the two vocation schools of art were combined, this London design school can have space for numerous courses such as performing and photography and animation, curation, 3D design, fashion communication and creative computing.

The £200m campus outside the original transit sheds and granary consists of two new four-storey buildings containing classrooms, workshops and a library. And a 350-seat student theatre. OCAD University, Toronto, Canada The final but by no means least on our roll call of the world's top design schools as sweet as they are crucial to the creation of tomorrow's design stars is Canada's longest-standing and most prestigious art and design school. OCAD goes far too far with a statement building in Will Alsop's 2004 Sharp Centre – a pixellated black-and-white box clumsily balanced atop brightly hued stilts towering over the old university building.

It started as the School of Art, Ontario, in 1876, OCAD went through several different incarnations before it was constituted a full university in 2010 and came out with firm object strands in aboriginal design themes and colours and in green practice.

By drawing on heritage successes such as Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer, the university itself has carried on pushing the envelope with new ventures such as Digital Futures, where it's breaking new ground at the cutting edge of newer technology at the nexus of art, design, and media.