Artist and architect Ron Arad was born in Tel Aviv in 1951 and educated at the Jerusalem Academy of Art and, later, at the Architectural Association in London. In 2008 Ron Arad Architects was established. Prior to then, Arad served as Professor of Design Product at the Royal College of Art in London. He was awarded the 2011 London Design Week Medal for design excellence and became a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013. His experimentation with the possibilities of materials such as steel, aluminium or polyamide and his radical re-conception of the form and structure of furniture has put him "at the forefront of contemporary design and architecture," according to one critic.