At the end of Stirling Road where it joins Queensway, is the home of the former Baharuddin Vocational Institute, the first school in Singapore dedicated to manual and applied arts. As Singapore's economy developed, it became clear that industries would soon need people trained in design. Planning for this creative school began in 1966. It was to be called Queenstown Vocational Institute but was eventually named Baharuddin Vocational Institute (BVI) in 1968.
The school started with a few borrowed classrooms at other vocational institutes and the printing demonstration room of of the East Asiatic Company located at Saiboo Street. It was only in January 1970 that the school moved into its own premises at Stirling Road. A printing school was established when the institute signed an agreement with Germany in 1970. The rest of the institute was funded by soft loans from the British Government Mitigatory Aid Scheme. Though it was absorbed by Temasek Polytechnic (TP) in 1990, BVI's legacy of creativity continues in the polytechnic's design faculty today.