The Design Village (TDV) based out of Delhi NCR, which offers industry-centric degree programmes in design in collaboration with privately-run OP Jindal Global University, is set to open its first international campus in Italy.
“TDV is the first Indian design school to open a dedicated overseas campus in Europe,” TDV’s co-founder Mridu Sahai told The Hindu.
Ms. Sahai said, “We want to open a satellite campus in Italy, a place rich with design heritage to question the status quo and build a new narrative of design — one that goes beyond decor and drafting — one connected to social impact.”
After scouting for an appropriate property to build a campus, the founders zeroed in on Villa – Castello di Torrazzetta, an abandoned heritage building that was home to an erstwhile Italian noble Marquises Serra, located 50 km north of Milan. “It was used as a hermitage for monks and nuns, later used to host an occasional wedding and was being run as a hotel, but the owners and Don Niso Dallavalle Foundation, which look after its upkeep, were looking for collaborations which would retain its heritage value and look after it’s upkeep,” said Ms. Sahai.
A class under way at a stepwell in The Design Village
| Photo Credit:
The Design Village/Harris George Stephen
TDV offers a four-year undergraduate and two-year postgraduate programmes in Design, including specialisations in fashion and textile, communication and interaction design, product and industrial design as well as space and interior design. Currently, nearly 340 students are enrolled in TDV’s four-year undergraduate programme which costs close to Rs 26 lakhs.
Up to 50 students will spend either their fifth or sixth semester in our Italy campus in a fully paid two-month immersive creative residency programme. Also, from 2028 onwards, TDV is planning to introduce a two-year Master’s programme in Design, which will operate for a year from the Italy campus and another year from the Noida campus.
She further said that TDV, with an approximate investment of €1.5 to 2 million over the next five years, wants to build a library, labs, classrooms in the heritage building in a bid to revive the old structure and give it a new meaning.
“The campus is situated in a small town of Borgo Priolo, a municipality in the province of Pavia with a population of close to 1399 people. Also, the younger generation is moving out, and by establishing a design school campus, we have a larger mandate of rejenuvating the region, and how we as a school can contribute to the larger community,” Ms. Sahai added.
She further said, “The idea of immersing Indian design students in an international experience is that we learn so much about our context when we are out of it.”
“The region where our campus is located is rich in olive oil groves, it is the ham capital, has a thriving culture of bread, close by is Valentino’s workshop, and there is a heritage of ceramics. We want to expose our students to agro tourism, emerging fields like food design, which help infuse nutritional value in society, research about furniture markets and so on, things which are possible internationally,” Ms. Sahai explained. “Students will be exposed to the Milan Fair, which is the biggest furniture fair globally and the Venice Biennale.”
Ms. Sahai explained that there have been examples of how Italian villages have been revived through social impact projects. For instance, the village of Trivero (Biella) was adopted by a fabric merchant, who now supports the ecology of the township. In another example, the village of Solomeo is the hamlet which produces luxury cashmere. Also, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, promoted in 2004 by the Slow Food Association in collaboration with the Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna regional authorities, is a private university recognised by Italy. “There have been these examples of social impact through collaborations but this is the first of its kind involving India,” she said.
TDV, with its urban campus in the heart of industrial Noida, has opened up its gates to the local community, where non-profits have mobilised training for tailoring, wood and metal works. Design students at TDV are involved in creating social impact by conceptualising fabric engraved with braille. In another instance, they have designed a school uniform from Grades 9 to 12 that evolves with sizing, so students don’t have to buy new ones. Students have helped harvest stem cells from menstrual blood through recyclable pads and designed food system interventions for the Rohingya community, teaching them to rear fish, which they can eat or sell. “Our ethos lies in creating social impact, and we are aiming to do that by creating convergence between the India and Italy campuses,” said Ms. Sahai.
Published – September 05, 2025 08:16 am IST
