Skip to main content

S School


The disciplines of S School are concerned with the complex systems that support and shape our world – systems of people, technology, capital, communication, resources, nature – which are hybrid and interdependent.

Spanning graphic communication and product design, architecture and built environments, business innovation and creative enterprise, S School interrogates and proposes how different forms of designing can challenge and change the systems that surround us, to build better futures where the human and more than human can flourish.

We believe great design starts with understanding the bigger picture. To make real impact, we need to see how things connect—people, places, technologies, and ideas—and learn how to shape those connections with care. S School dives into these systems, not to simplify them, but to explore their richness. We treat complexity and uncertainty as fuel for fresh thinking, bold collaboration, and hands-on design practice. S School is where creative possibility meets real-world invention.

Rebecca Wright, Dean of S School

A screen showing blurry 3d objects within an app, the background is bright pink.
Memento, WENYI GU, MA Narrative Environments 2025

We are S School

S School disciplines are intrinsically connected to industry and professional fields of practice – architecture, product and industrial design, graphic communication design and business innovation. However, the work of S school is to not only attend to the discipline specificity of our current academic offer but also to activate the opportunity of the between spaces – between our disciplinary subjects, between designing and wider disciplines, between education and industry, between what it means to be human now and what it means to be making different futures.

We ask our students to reimagine, remake and regenerate the systems that surround us. A critical approach to practice, close relationships with industry and a participatory approach to learning from and with others equips our graduates to navigate complexity and uncertainty.

CSM student Bettina is standing in a room with chairs holding a mic presenting to the room. Behind her is a large image of her on a screen with IBM and NHS branding. On screen text reads: Bettina Dow, Associate Design Consultant at IBM, CSM BA Product & Industrial Design 2024. Currently working in the NHS Cervical Screening Programme as a User Researcher.
Flourish Diploma in Professional Studies Day at CSM 2025. Photo: Razvan Dragos.

Industry placements

Our Diploma in Professional Studies facilitates over 1000 placements worldwide each year for students from Product, Ceramic and Industrial Design, Fine Art, Performance, Fashion, Jewellery, Textiles and Materials. Students test, develop and exchange knowledge and skills working with partner organisations who shape their industries: from micro and small-to-medium sized studios, laboratories, start-ups, NGOs and agencies; to multinational corporations and charities.

Find out more about Diploma in Professional Studies at CSM

A vibrant coloured tapestry illustrating community scenes and a food hub in London is held up in front of someone standing outside a food bank sign. This image is in a black frame and superimposed onto a greyscale image of food crates piled up on 3 walls, there is also a window and hanging food labels and a large wall planner.
'Common Table', Rachel Leong, M ARCH: Architecture 2025

Research

Schools are the disciplinary foundation of our research and knowledge exchange culture, with research emerging from our centres and labs and across projects and communities of practice. Academic and technical staff, professoriate members and doctoral students come together as subject leaders, aligning research with curriculum development and advancing how we approach our disciplines. S School fosters inquiry grounded in our subject specialisms.

Research at CSM

Showcase 2025

UAL Showcase is an always-on global platform showcasing the processes and development of distinctive ideas by our graduating students across all disciplines. This is a space for recent graduates to share their work, make connections and help shape the creative industries. Explore work by final year students from our 3 Schools at Central Saint Martins

Business, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange

We collaborate to creatively tackle challenges that matter to a wide range of audiences. We deliver bespoke partnerships and projects that expand innovation capacity within businesses, communities and local government.

Undergraduate courses

Postgraduate courses

  • A black and white fanfiction page with the title Mythmaker and columns of text and image is repeated in a grid format
    MythBreaker, Xueqing Liang, MA Applied Imagination 2025

    MA Applied Imagination

  • A tall metal construction on a stand attached to a laptop, that can play with lights and sounds. It has a vertical orange stripe and a corrugated sheath around the middle with lights and sensors.
    'Immaterial' Maya Zara, M ARCH: Architecture 2025

    M: ARCH Architecture

  • A colourful 2-part diagram with curved lines, some text and a legend, representing data visually
    Understanding Peace Through the Lens of News Media, Anca Sarb, MA Communicating Complexity, 2025. Courtesy of Anca Sarb and CSM Museum and Study Collection.

    MA Communicating Complexity

  • A map of Recife, Brazil plotting historical geographical and data from 1859 to now via different layers of coloured lines and shaded areas
    Mapping water flow under the city of Recife in Brazil from 1850 - present. By MA Cities Y1 student Gaia Maria Vignali

    MA Cities

Central Saint Martins

Contact

Telephone

+44 (0)20 7514 7444

Address

1 Granary Square
King's Cross
London
N1C 4AA