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Maven SIDD · Since 2009 · Ikeja · Lekki · Abuja · Online
Maven SIDD trains interior designers for the profession, not the hobby — drawings, sites, materials in the hand, and enough business sense to survive year two. Ikeja, Lekki, Abuja, and online.
Explore programmes
→View student work
→Site visit, live residential build
What we believe
A designer decides how a room is entered, where light falls, what a surface costs to maintain and how a family actually lives in it. Those decisions are made long before furniture is chosen.
We teach the whole sequence — brief, research, concept, drawing, specification, delivery — because that is what practice demands. Africa's cities are changing quickly. The designers who shape them need to be trained properly.
Read the founder's letter
→2009
Founded
The first school of its kind in Nigeria.
3,000+
Graduates
Working in residential, hospitality, commercial and retail design — and running their own practices.
10
Students per class
An average class of ten. Enough room to work, enough attention to improve.
3 + 3
Months
Three months taught, then a compulsory internship of at least three months.
Student work
All work
→Setting out a plan while the fabric selection is still open
Space planning and specification exercise
Student project / 01
An executive office reworked from a measured survey — walnut joinery, layered lighting and a warm ivory-to-brass palette, taken from hand-drawn plan through to specification and installation.
Student project / 02
A four-bedroom family apartment answered in a minimalist register — cool neutrals, bleached and dark walnut, and a full drawing set from existing plan through elevations, finishes, ceiling and lighting.
Both projects are student coursework, published with the designers' names as submitted.
Why Maven
We teach you how to think about a space, not what to put in it. The brief comes before the mood board.
Ideas become drawings, drawings become specifications, specifications become buildable rooms.
CAD, 3D modelling and visualisation, because that is how schemes are communicated and sold.
Climate, materials, supply chains, family life and the way our cities are actually built.
Fees, contracts, contractors and clients. Design is also a business you will have to run.
You graduate with work you can show. Assessment is portfolio-based, taught by practising architects.
Programmes
Almost everyone starts on the Certificate: twelve modules, three months taught, then a compulsory internship of at least three months. The add-on courses exist for people who already work and need one capability. The Advanced Diploma is the step after.
CERT / 01 · Start here
The full training. Twelve modules. Three months taught, then a compulsory internship of at least three months. You learn to plan a room, price it, draw it, specify it and defend it.
Read the Certificate
→Apply now
Duration
Three months taught, then a compulsory internship of at least three months
Structure
Twelve modules · morning or afternoon belt
Class size
Average of ten students
Tuition
₦250,000 in two instalments
Enrolment form
₦30,000 · payable on application
Practical materials
₦20,000
Add one capability — short standalone courses
CAD / 02 · Add one capability
Technical drawing and photoreal visualisation. The skill employers ask for most.
₦250,000 · enrolment form ₦30,000
Programme details →SOFT / 03 · Add one capability
Curtains, blinds, upholstery, cushions and bed dressing — taught as a craft and as a business.
₦100,000 · enrolment form ₦30,000
Programme details →ONLINE / 04 · Add one capability
The theory of the Certificate, on demand. No campus practical.
₦100,000
Programme details →The curriculum
Every module ends in something you have made, measured, specified or defended. The residential project you begin in module four becomes the first complete assignment in your portfolio.
Our philosophy, and the twelve elements of design — a new way of understanding what you are actually seeing, and the message behind a style.
Assessment
Nine pieces of coursework, a final retail, residential or corporate project presented to a jury, and an examination.
Internship
Compulsory, minimum three months, at a design firm, furniture maker or soft furnishing house. The school provides the list.
Timetable
Mondays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays. Morning belt 9am–12pm, afternoon belt 12pm–3pm.
Membership
Students are eligible for student membership of the African Association of Interior Designers, and may apply for full membership on completion.
On graduation you can interpret an architect's drawings and produce your own, draw perspectives by hand, and supervise tiling, floor finishes, painting, wall preparation, wallpaper and all ceiling types including P.O.P.
ADV · After the Certificate
The Advanced Diploma in Interior Design is the step after the Certificate — from foundational skills to professional practice. It is structured to Quality Licence Scheme Level 5 and awarded by Maven SIDD's UK entity.
Creative design development, technical competence and digital proficiency, carried by nine modules and a capstone thesis. You leave with a portfolio built for employment or for a Level 6 top-up.
Award
Advanced Diploma in Interior Design
Standard
Benchmarked to QLS Level 5
Duration
Six months — four months taught, two months final project
Structure
Nine modules · 155 credits · no written exams
Assessment
Coursework, drawing sets, visualisations, capstone thesis
Tuition
₦1,000,000 · enrolment ₦20,000
Syllabus outline — nine modules, 155 credits
Contemporary interior design theory and movements, concept development and design rationale, critical analysis of precedent.
Founders Class
Once a month, direct mentorship on building a profitable practice in Nigeria — pricing, premium clients, negotiation, firm structure.
Association membership
One year of free membership of the African Association of Interior Designers, and eligibility to apply to international institutes.
UK professional route
Structured guidance toward membership of bodies such as the British Institute of Interior Design, while based in Nigeria.
UK exhibitions
Outstanding students are supported to attend major UK design exhibitions. Partner agencies assist with travel; the Home Office decides.
Apply for the diploma
→Entry — Certificate in Interior Design or equivalent
Progression under the UK Creative Occupations pathway (ONS code 3421) may support later applications to routes such as the Global Talent visa. Visa decisions rest with the UK Home Office at the time of application.
The studio
Drawing at the table. Measuring on site. Choosing stone in a showroom. Presenting a scheme and defending it. Scroll the studio →
Designing Africa
How do we design for the way Lagos actually lives — for heat, for power, for extended families, for buildings that arrive before their services do?
That question runs through every studio brief we set. It is also the territory where our graduates compete internationally, because nobody understands it better.
Shade, orientation and ventilation as design decisions rather than afterthoughts.
What Nigeria makes, quarries and weaves — and who can supply it at project scale.
Warehouses, townhouses and shells given a second, better life.
Practices, studios and product lines built by designers trained here.
People
Olaniyi Gbolahan · Founder, architect and interior designer
Maven opened in 2009 on a single conviction: that interior design in Nigeria deserved to be taught properly. Not as a weekend hobby. Not as a matter of cushions and curtains. As a profession — with drawings, with sites, with materials in the hand, and with enough business sense to survive the second year.
Students still learn to read an architect's drawing before they choose a fabric. They still stand in a tile showroom and learn the difference between what looks expensive and what lasts. And they still leave able to run a practice, not merely to decorate a room.
If you have ever walked into a space and felt certain you could have done it better, you already have the instinct. Instinct is the part we cannot teach. Everything after it, we can.
Read the full letter
→Faculty
Architect · Faculty
Teaches: facility management — how an interior performs after handover.
Architecture, interior design, interior construction, 2D and 3D modelling.
Architect · Faculty
Teaches: project management — programme, budget and the client relationship.
Architecture, interior design, interior construction, 2D and 3D modelling.
Architect · Faculty
Teaches: construction detailing and visualisation — drawings a fabricator can build from.
Architecture, interior design, interior construction, 2D and 3D modelling.
Architect · Faculty
Teaches: construction management — supervising the trades on a live site.
Architecture, interior design, interior construction, 2D and 3D modelling.
Where we teach
2A Oladipo Soyebo Close, Omole Phase 1 Estate, Ojodu, Ikeja. Where the school began in 2009.
Reception, Ikeja
Suite B8, Times Square Mall, Jinhua Street, Ikota, Lekki.
Lekki campus
2nd Floor, Plot 60, Floju's Place, Bayelsa Court, Gaduwa Shopping Plaza, Gudu District, Abuja.
Abuja campus
London
Maven SIDD Admin Office: 5 Brayford Square, London E1 0SG
Campuses and contact
→Knowledge and transformation
The library is organised the way the transformation runs — seven subject pillars and an opinion journal, written by the people who teach the programmes.
01 · Discover
You are looking
Rooms, ideas, images. No intention to study yet.
02 · Learn
You want to understand
The discipline behind the picture, explained properly.
03 · Believe
You test our authority
Written by architects who teach and practise.
04 · Transform
You see the evidence
Graduates, their work and what it earned them.
05 · Act
You enrol
Certificate, add-on course, or the UK diploma after.
Pillar 01
Learn interior design
The teaching category. Answers the questions beginners actually ask, in the discipline's real vocabulary.
Pillar 02
Interior design careers
From beginner to professional — the route in, and what it pays.
Pillar 03
Interior design business
Teaching the skill is half of it. This pillar teaches earning from it.
Pillar 04
African interior design
Maven's intellectual territory — African design as context and opportunity, not a decorative style.
Pillar 05
Design inspiration, read professionally
Rooms worth looking at, with the analysis a designer would apply to them.
Pillar 06
Trends and industry
The industry-authority pillar. Where the profession and the market are going.
Pillar 07
Maven stories
The transformation, evidenced. Recurring format: before Maven, Maven, after Maven.
The journal
The Maven Journal
Opinion and leadership — the pieces that give the school a voice rather than a content library.
Explore the library
→
Why the school exists
If you have ever walked into a space and felt certain you could have done it better, you already have the instinct. Instinct is the part we cannot teach. Everything after it, we can.
Olaniyi Gbolahan
Founder · architect and interior designer
Read the full letter
→Apply
No previous experience in design is necessary — we ask for enthusiasm and dedication. Classes are capped at an average of ten students and enrol on a rolling basis, so register early.
Certificate ₦250,000 in two instalments · enrolment form ₦30,000 · practical materials ₦20,000
Advanced Diploma ₦1,000,000 · enrolment ₦20,000 · six months
Bring a sketch pad, measuring tape, pencils and coloured pencils. A laptop is necessary for CAD.
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