Get schooled: Project Design Space

They’re the future of the region and the world: student designers. We’re excited to see the that Project Design Space (PDS), the UAE’s largest design challenge for high-school students, is returning for a third consecutive year.  Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) has seen 2,000 budding student designers from schools across the Emirates, register to take part in this year’s challenge. Each will have the opportunity to solve ‘real-world’ design problems for real-life clients.

Set to be DIDI’s biggest Project Design Space to date, this year’s challenge has been opened up to students from grades 5-12, giving them the rare opportunity to come up with innovative design solutions for Dubai-based clients.

Off the back of the overwhelming success of last year’s challenge, where 1,200 students from 50 schools competed in the initiative, Project Design Space is excited to have secured four new collaborating organisations – Dubai Holding, Emirates Marine Environmental Group, Landmark Group and The Dubai Mall – all of which will provide real design briefs to participating students.

Throughout the 16-week challenge, each participating school will receive specialized training and program materials. The participating PDS students will be mentored by their school teachers during after-school club meetings to design solutions for the client’s design briefs.  Finalists will then attend a design ‘boot camp’ hosted by DIDI, where they will receive expert feedback and coaching from the University’s faculty and staff.

Mohammad Abdullah, President of DIDI said: ‘Aiming to nurture and mentor the next generation of designers in the UAE, Project Design Space will seek to provide invaluable experience in solving real world challenges and igniting a passion for design’.

The real-world PDS design challenges include; designing the retail pop-up store of the future, crafting an omni-channel customer experience, designing a habitat for turtles, and energizing a brand through story-telling.

Following successful application, schools will then work on their ideas and designs before submitting their prototypes to DIDI by 24 February, 2019. Finalists will be invited to a special event on 23 March, 2019 at DIDI’s university campus in Dubai Design District (d3), where teams will pitch design prototypes to their clients and attend an award ceremony.