Dubai Design Week 2016: Future creatives

Dubai is famous for commissioning ambitious and often outlandish architecture, but has yet to establish an educational and creative community capable of fostering home-grown talent. This could be about to change. Announced as part of Dubai Design Week 2016, DIDI will take the form of an £60m (AED270m, $73m, €68m) 100,000 square-feet campus within the freshly minted creative community d3.

Based on the recommendations of the MENA Design Education Outlook study from May 2016, the institution aims to help facilitate a projected 6% design sector growth in the region over the next five years. This is expected to translate into a demand for about 30,000 design graduates, making DIDI’s annual intake of 550 a small but vital contribution.

Acknowledging the challenges of creating a top-down creative community in this way, the team behind DIDI has enlisted the expertise of MIT and Parsons School of Design to help replicate the conditions for true innovation. ‘Dubai is a commercial environment that allows for fast innovation with less friction,’ said Dr Amina Al Rustamani, chair of the Dubai Design and Fashion Council, at a press conference announcing the plans.