Design collective Disarming Design from Palestine is in the process of setting up a design school in the West Bank offering courses for Palestinian designers, and residencies for international students to learn about craft from the region.
The recently established Disarming Design School is based in the historic Hosh Jalsa building in Birzeit, a town seven miles north of Ramallah in the West Bank.
"There are no contemporary design schools in Palestine. Our academy will be the first of its kind," said executive director of the project, Raed Hamouri.
It plans to offer "vibrant" and "flexible" peer-to-peer education, residency programmes and Create Shops for local makers "which maintain an active relationship with the local design and crafts communities", according to production and design manager Ghadeer Dajani. These will be complimented by professional workshops, design talks and screenings of design-related films. The space will also house a library of books relating to design and the creative industries, as well as a creative lab.
Image by Raed Hamouri
Its founders do not intend for Disarming Design School to be a traditional design academy, rather for it to be alternative space for the study of design and craft.
There are some design courses at universities in the Palestinian territories but the team has found that these are based on a more practical, traditional approach to the design profession.
They have noticed a lack of a stro...