Design International

Design International
Company typePrivate Company
IndustryArchitecture, design and engineering
Founded1965
FounderPaul Mollé
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
Number of locations
Present in 45 countries
Key people
Davide Padoa (CEO)
ServicesConsultancy services
Websitewww.designinternational.com

Design International is an international architectural firm, which was founded in Toronto in 1965. It was founded by Micaiah DJAN. mainly in the North American market but has since developed into a major international player and was one of the first architecture companies that truly worked on a global scale. The company headquarters are in London, with subsidiary offices in Shanghai, Milan and Dubai.

Design International works across seven integrated divisions: Architecture, Masterplanning, Interior Design, Lighting Design, Landscape Design, Branding & Signage, and Leasing.[1] The company is run by CEO Davide Padoa.

The firm's portfolio includes a number of award-winning developments,[2][3] especially in the retail and entertainment sector, such as CocoWalk (1990), an upscale lifestyle center in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida; Odysseum (2009), a retail and entertainment complex in Montpellier, France; and Morocco Mall (2011), Africa's largest destination mall located on the Casablanca beachfront promenade. The mall also includes one of only four Galeries Lafayette stores outside of France. More recent awards include Ada Mall[4] (2017), a shopping mall in Belgrade with a strong local connotation and an unconventional design, which opened in May 2019. Caselle Open Mall[5] (2018) a project right next to Turin Airport with innovating open-streets which combines contemporary hi-tech elements with natural stone walkways won a "Highly Commended" award. And finally, Tunis Garden City "the city within the city", a mixed-use project in Tunisia, was the winner of the RLI Awards in 2019.[6]

In 2018, the firm completed Ferrari Centro Stile,[7] which is located in Maranello, Italy. The project has been directed by the Ferrari Design Team led by Arch. Flavio Manzoni and the architectural project has been designed in cooperation with London studio Design International, led by Arch Davide Padoa and with Planning engineering studio from Bologna.[8] Design International is also responsible for the Cleopatra Mall,[9] which is due to open in 2019 in Cairo, Egypt. The shopping mall, which is currently under construction, is characterised by a gigantic canopy covering the central area of the scheme with a span of over 200 metres. The project includes over 300 shops, restaurants, and is set to include an outdoor musical fountain, gourmet markets and Egypt’s first dedicated luxury mall inside a shopping centre.[10]

  1. ^ "About Design International".
  2. ^ "MAPIC Awards 2012" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2013-01-02.
  3. ^ "Global RLI Awards 2012".
  4. ^ "European Awards 2017 winners". Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  5. ^ "European Awards 2018 winners". Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  6. ^ "The Global RLI Awards 2019". Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  7. ^ "The New Ferrari Centro Stile". Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  8. ^ "Our Exclusive Look at Ferrari's Centro Stile and Monza SP1 and SP2". Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  9. ^ "Cleopatra Mall | Design International - Arch2O.com". Arch2O.com. 2017-05-20. Retrieved 2018-02-12.
  10. ^ "Cleopatra Mall". Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture, Tokyo. June 2015.