Masters Degrees (Spatial Design)

Introduction

MA Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Arts explores conceptual spatial concerns and notions of how we inhabit space in an area of study that's distinct from but still complementary to architecture.

Content

What students can expect from the course:

- To address issues about how we inhabit space and develop sensibilities about intervening into existing architectural structures or situations

- To engage with the language of architecture and the experiential aspects of what it is to inhabit and interact with our spatial environment; from the functional design of built structures to fine art installations, from furniture to computer animation or film

- To explore interior and spatial design from either a research orientated or professional practice point of view or combination of both

Structure

Phase 1: Analysis of Practice and Exploration of Methodologies

Phase 2: Development and Consolidation

Phase 3: Resolution

These phases are set within a credit framework of three assessed units:

- Studio practice and Advanced studio practice, which run sequentially

- Theoretical studies, which runs throughout the course

Studio practice involves evolving and developing a personal programme of studio work and related research. Theoretical Studies provides a framework for you to develop a critical research paper, enabling you to locate your ideas and practice in relation to contemporary debate on cultural and theoretical issues.

Throughout the course you participate in individual and group tutorials, develop skills through Personal Professional Development workshops and on-line resources while the postgraduate talks are organised to introduce you to a range of visiting artists and practitioners.

Work experience and opportunities

We provide our students with a valuable bridge between study and professional practice, as they engage with leading practitioners through the course. This helps students redefine their current and future practice as professional designers, or progress to further research.

Read less

This Master of Design is new for 2017.

A professionally focused program of advanced study in contemporary design practice, the Master of Design course includes specialisations in interaction design, multimedia design and collaborative design.

You can also take a range of units from across these three to construct an advanced studies in design specialisation. This program is ideal for those keen to enter the expanding fields of professional design engagement, or design practitioners aiming to upgrade their expertise. You’ll be trained in advanced design thinking and processes that’ll equip you to create design solutions that engage experiential, communication, object and spatial contexts.

Visit the website http://www.study.monash/courses/find-a-course/2017/design-f6002?domestic=true

Overview

Please select a specialisation for more details:

- Advanced studies in design
This pathway allows you to construct, with approval, an individual program of study from across interaction design, multimedia design and collaborative design. This enables you to tailor your unit choices while addressing the fundamental principles of advanced design practice and thinking. It’ll inspire you to connect research and practice across the design disciplines, and to become a thoughtful design practitioner. You’ll broaden your knowledge of key design constructs, deepen your professional learning in design areas of interest, and advance your capacity as a design professional.

- Collaborative design
Collaborative design places you conceptually and practically at the intersection of interior, graphic and industrial design practice. The program will set you design challenges involving image, text, products, narratives, systems, ervices, public and private space, materiality and virtuality. You’ll develop independent conceptual and practical design skills alongside an ability to be part of collaborative design processes. You’ll expand your awareness across design disciplines; develop multidisciplinary design expertise; and build broader skills in leadership, professional adaptability and complex project planning.

- Interaction design
The interaction design specialisation develops your skills in the design of contemporary artefacts, products and services that engage with interactive, user-focused technologies and processes. These can include, but aren’t limited to, health and medical equipment, ‘smart’ furniture, educational toys, wearable technologies, information kiosks and transport systems. You’ll use a diverse range of interactive processes, including the application of advanced technologies; electronics and programming; physical and virtual interface manipulation; engineering and material fabrication; and rapid prototyping. The specialisation gives you an understanding of the relationship between interactive activities, products and human behaviour.

- Multimedia design
Multimedia design develops your skills in digital communication environments. This includes: designing for the web; motion and animation; and interactive touchscreen devices and surfaces. Emphasising an advanced knowledge of existing and emerging digital design processes and systems, this specialisation embraces projects of varied scale, from hand-held smart devices to large public interactive screens. It develops your ability to build a communication narrative; use multimedia processes to fill community and business needs; and understand the end-user’s engagement with projects or products such as websites, apps and other screen-based media.

Course Structure

The course comprises 96 points structured into 3 parts:

Part A. Preparatory Studies for Advanced Design (24 points), Part B. Advanced Design Studies (24 points), and Part C. Advanced Design Applications (48 points).

- Students admitted at Entry level 1 complete 96 points, comprising Part A, B & C
- Students admitted at Entry level 2 complete 72 points, comprising Part B & C
- Students admitted at Entry level 3 complete 48 points, comprising Part C

Note: Students eligible for credit for prior studies may elect not to receive the credit and complete one of the higher credit-point options. A zero credit point unit in Art, Design and Architecture Occupational Health and Safety will also be undertaken. This unit is required of all students in the Master of Design and must be undertaken even if credit is obtained for Parts A or B.

Part A: Preparatory studies for advanced design
These studies provide you with the conceptual thinking and technical skill set required for advanced postgraduate study in this area. The studio unit brings together conceptual and technical abilities developed in the other two units.

Part B: Advanced design studies
In these studies you will focus on the application of conceptual thinking and technical skills to advanced design problem solving. You will analyse and create a project outcome based on research, critique, and the application of design processes appropriate to your specialisation. You will also choose a selective unit that will further build capacity in your chosen specialisation.

Part C: Advanced design applications
In these studies you will focus on the application of advanced design problem solving skills at a professional level. You will consolidate skills and practice of design research methodologies and may extend your research trajectory to further study. Part C is also supported by a selective unit to allow you to build capabilities in your chosen specialisation.

In the final semester you will pursue a major design project or participate in a leading industry project. The exegesis unit formalises the research component of Part C. The final semester brings together advanced technical ability, conceptual thinking, entrepreneurial studies and design management in practice.

For more information visit the faculty website - http://www.study.monash/media/links/faculty-websites/design-and-architecture

Find out how to apply here - http://www.study.monash/courses/find-a-course/2017/design-f6002?domestic=true

Read less

Our MA Urban Design programme is jointly delivered by the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Geography and Planning. The goal of this programme is to enable practitioners and scholars to transform the field of urban design through critical thinking and creative practice.

Urban design is transdisciplinary, straddling professional fields such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and public policy, and also disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology and cultural studies. The programme fully embraces this transdisciplinarity through the theory, research training and design teaching it offers.

You will learn from academic staff from both schools who are highly accomplished and locally engaged in Cardiff, nationally in the UK, and internationally across the world. In the context of the design studios, you will also be able to benefit from the input and expertise of leading practitioners.

Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism

Distinctive features

• Learn from academics in two Schools which are ranked among the top 50 in the world.

• The course is taught via lectures, workshops and design studios, by staff drawn from both the architecture and planning schools, who are leading experts in their fields. Design Tutors include leading practitioners who bring their experience of cutting edge practice to the core of design studio work.

• The course is recognised by the Royal Town Planning Institute as a 'specialist' masters for those who have completed at least a three-year RTPI recognised undergraduate spatial planning degree, allowing completion of the RTPI's educational requirements for membership. For further details visit the Royal Town Planning Institute website.

• Accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), allowing completion of the educational requirement for RICS membership.

Structure

This is a one-year full-time degree.

The course is structured to provide a set of three lecture-based modules and three studio-based design modules, followed by a dissertation in the form of a research-based design project. The three lecture-based modules run in parallel with studio-based design projects which enable you to continually relate theory and practice.

Your research-based design project represents the culmination of your studies. You will be required to develop proposals relating to a chosen site, demonstrating an understanding of all aspects of urban design drawings and a written, reflective commentary.

You will have between 2-3 days of contact time each week, working between the design studio and your module lectures/seminars.

Core modules:

Urban Design Thinkers
Urban Design Foundation
Research Methods and Techniques
Development Management
Autumn Studio
Spring Studio
Research Based Design Project

Teaching

Teaching takes place in new light-filled studio spaces in the centre of the City. You will also have access to the latest modelling and workshop facilities in the Architecture School.

This MA is taught via lectures, workshops and design studios, by lecturers who are all experts in their fields – in geography, urban planning, urbanism, urban design and architecture. The design tutors also include leading practitioners who bring their experience of cutting-edge practice to the core of design studio work.

Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism.

Assessment

Non-design modules provide the foundations for developing understandings of urban design. These are assessed through:

• Essays
• Reports
• Presentations

Most of these provide the opportunities for summative assessment. However, tutorials, and a number of essays provide the opportunities for formative assessment.

Summative assessment is conducted at the end of each module. Formative assessment elements include design reviews, usually one or two per design module, and weekly tutorials also provide an opportunity for this.

Other forms of assessment include:

• Drawings
• Sketchbooks
• Viva voce examination of the dissertation
• Reports

Career Prospects

Graduates move onto careers as urban designers, or in urban design related work. Most of these careers are to be found within the wider areas of architecture, urban planning, property or public policy. These may be within the public, private or voluntary sectors. Some of our graduates continue to higher research degrees.

Guidance and mentoring on careers are provided during the year.

Fieldwork

As part of your studies you will take a field study visit within a UK city or a city in mainland Europe, which is fully funded within the advertised fees.

Study visits are an intrinsic part of this programme. Where your experience during the visits inform assessed assignments in required core modules, the visits are compulsory.

These field study visits are compulsory since experiences of urban design ‘in the field’ are required for completing some assignments. However, modified versions of the field trips may be allowed at the discretion of the Course Director.

The trip will require you to move around the city and make observations and presentations during these journeys. Every effort will be made to accommodate students with disabilities. It is advisable to speak to the Course Director about the possibility of adjustments before enrolling.

Read less

Our MA Urban Design programme is jointly delivered by the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Geography and Planning. The goal of this programme is to enable practitioners and scholars to transform the field of urban design through critical thinking and creative practice.

Urban design is transdisciplinary, straddling professional fields such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and public policy, and also disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology and cultural studies. The programme fully embraces this transdisciplinarity through the theory, research training and design teaching it offers.

You will learn from academic staff from both schools who are highly accomplished and locally engaged in Cardiff, nationally in the UK, and internationally across the world. In the context of the design studios, you will also be able to benefit from the input and expertise of leading practitioners. 

Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism.

Distinctive features

• Learn from academics in two Schools which are ranked among the top 50 in the world.

• The course is taught via lectures, workshops and design studios, by staff drawn from both the architecture and planning schools, who are leading experts in their fields. Design Tutors include leading practitioners who bring their experience of cutting edge practice to the core of design studio work.

• The course is recognised by the Royal Town Planning Institute as a 'specialist' masters for those who have completed at least a three-year RTPI recognised undergraduate spatial planning degree, allowing completion of the RTPI's educational requirements for membership. For further details visit the Royal Town Planning Institute website.

• Accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), allowing completion of the educational requirement for RICS membership.

Structure

This is a one-year full-time degree.

The course is structured to provide a set of three lecture-based modules and three studio-based design modules, followed by a dissertation in the form of a research-based design project. The three lecture-based modules run in parallel with studio-based design projects which enable you to continually relate theory and practice.

Your research-based design project represents the culmination of your studies. You will be required to develop proposals relating to a chosen site, demonstrating an understanding of all aspects of urban design drawings and a written, reflective commentary.

You will have between 2-3 days of contact time each week, working between the design studio and your module lectures/seminars.

Core modules:

Urban Design Thinkers
Urban Design Foundation
Research Methods and Techniques
Development Management
Autumn Studio
Spring Studio
Research Based Design Project

Teaching

Teaching takes place in new light-filled studio spaces in the centre of the City. You will also have access to the latest modelling and workshop facilities in the Architecture School.

This MA is taught via lectures, workshops and design studios, by lecturers who are all experts in their fields – in geography, urban planning, urbanism, urban design and architecture. The design tutors also include leading practitioners who bring their experience of cutting-edge practice to the core of design studio work.

Studio teaching focuses on developing critically informed as well as creative and practical proposals for real sites, addressing important contemporary issues of design and urbanism.

Assessment

Non-design modules provide the foundations for developing understandings of urban design. These are assessed through:

• Essays
• Reports
• Presentations

Most of these provide the opportunities for summative assessment. However, tutorials, and a number of essays provide the opportunities for formative assessment.

Summative assessment is conducted at the end of each module. Formative assessment elements include design reviews, usually one or two per design module, and weekly tutorials also provide an opportunity for this.

Other forms of assessment include:

• Drawings
• Sketchbooks
• Viva voce examination of the dissertation
• Reports

Career Prospects

Graduates move onto careers as urban designers, or in urban design related work. Most of these careers are to be found within the wider areas of architecture, urban planning, property or public policy. These may be within the public, private or voluntary sectors. Some of our graduates continue to higher research degrees.

Guidance and mentoring on careers are provided during the year.

Fieldwork

As part of your studies you will take a field study visit within a UK city or a city in mainland Europe, which is fully funded within the advertised fees.

Study visits are an intrinsic part of this programme. Where your experience during the visits inform assessed assignments in required core modules, the visits are compulsory.

These field study visits are compulsory since experiences of urban design ‘in the field’ are required for completing some assignments.
However, modified versions of the field trips may be allowed at the discretion of the Course Director.

The trip will require you to move around the city and make observations and presentations during these journeys. Every effort will be made to accommodate students with disabilities. It is advisable to speak to the Course Director about the possibility of adjustments before enrolling.

Read less

Why take this course?

This rigorous MA offers a professional award to graduates in Interior Design, Interior Architecture, Architecture or related spatial-design disciplines.

The course will develop your professional knowledge and skills; your understanding of entrepreneurship and business; your practice management and project leadership skills, and will expand your knowledge of setting up and running your own design practice. It will also deepen your understanding of ethical professional design practice and procedures and will help you to develop a practice or sector specialism.

What will I experience?

Research projects that will allow you to improve your academic skills and develop a sector or practice specialism; for example: healthcare, sustainable retail design or project leadership;
A firm grounding in professional practice and project management for architectural design;
Opportunities to work on live projects with real clients, through our Project Office, an in-house architectural practice.

What opportunities might it lead to?

This MA will offer you important tools that will help you to set up, promote and run your own design practice and to further position yourself for employment by developing a practice or sector specialism and by enhancing your practice management skills and project leadership skills.

Graduate may find rewarding careers in the following:

Architecture Practice
Interior Practice
Commercial Design
Retail Design
Exhibition Design
Teaching Academia
Project Management

Module Details

The course is structured to encompass the breadth of professional design practice from the macro (the broad context of ethical design practice) to the micro (the minutiae of professional design management). The curriculum will include the following modules of study:

Project Management: including project leadership, professional design regulations and procedures, law and contract administration, fee bids, professional communications, and approaches to brief writing;
Practice Management: including approaches to setting up and running a design practice, business innovation and entrepreneurship, business positioning and branding, business planning and marketing;
Topical Research: investigate ethical approaches to design practice, for example sector approaches to ethical design, design management or sustainable design.
Optional modules within the course:

Option 1 Materials and Products & Professional Experience and Practice: you will research and develop your understanding of materials and products. The knowledge gained will lead to a more sustained practice-based research project;
Option 2 Research Methods & Thesis: you will be provided with opportunities to develop appropriate research skills which can then be applied to the thesis project, a sustained investigation of a topic related to professional design practice.

Programme Assessment

Lecturers with a broad range of professional experience (in architecture and interior design), research skills, entrepreneurial skill, and expertise in education, will teach you using a variety of methods. Seminars, tutorials and study groups will encourage a vibrant culture of discussion and debate. Teaching will also support you in planning and completing a significant amount of self-directed learning for which you will need to be self-motivated, well organised and possess excellent study skills.

You will be assessed on the course work you complete, this could include: essays, thesis projects, design projects, reflective journals and portfolios. One of the optional units (Professional Experience and Practice) also includes a written examination, which is designed to test your knowledge of professional practice and processes, your ability to apply knowledge in practice and the quality of your professional judgements.


Student Destinations

This professional award will prepare you towards setting up, promoting and running your own design practice. Particular transferable skills will include: ethical practice, practice management, project management and leadership, business enterprise, professional communications and research skills.

The MA will also provide a platform for further study such as a PhD.

Our Schools employment statistics are very high and our post-graduates have found challenging and diverse employment in a range of occupations, including:

Architecture Practice
Interior Practice
Commercial Design
Retail Design
Exhibition Design
Teaching
Academia
Project Management

Read less

Why take this course?

This course allows you to develop and grow your own creative practice whilst positioning yourself within a theoretical context.

You will engage in the exploration of space conceptually and pragmatically, encouraging your own response to the functionality and visual design of existing sites. You’ll also inspect the consideration of materiality and the relationship of the interior idea to architecture.

What will I experience?

On this course you can:

Have the opportunity to 'earn and learn' by working on real life contracts through our Projects Office. This experience will enable you to develop your professional portfolio.
Develop a personal area of study, get involved with some regional regeneration projects and test and develop your ideas and your interior research.

What opportunities might it lead to?

Interior design can be transient or durable, small or large, can engage at a detailed product design level or at an urban level, but at whichever level, the demand for skilled professionals is increasing, as is the requirement for innovative sustainable designs.

This course provides a firm grounding for employment in a range of design offices, as well as other property-related jobs.

Here are some routes our graduates have pursued:

Interior design practice
Exhibition design
Retail consultant
Working for local and public authorities
Teaching in HE

Module Details

This course uses the experience and skills of teaching staff with a proven track record in interior design studies, practice and research. You will also benefit from a multi-disciplinary learning environment where more than 100 postgraduate students in architecture, interior design, urban design, sustainable design and historic building conservation can meet and work.

Here are the units you will study:

Practice: This unit provides you with the opportunity to evaluate your own design practice and the design discipline from which you come and to contextualise this within interior design practice. Practice-based methods will be used to explore the interior through inter-disciplinary means and you will build on and develop your own creative practice through real-world situations, through doing. You will also be involved in discussions around the social, political, economic and professional contexts that drive the construction of interior space. You will be expected to analyse and critically evaluate the interior context, develop briefs, strategies and a proposal for a given area.

Theory: This unit aims to interrogate the history of interior design and its relationship to practice. Interior design is a relatively youthful profession, whose history is situated in the gaps between architectural history and design history. In this unit you will explore the intellectual idea of the interior through debate and discussion, catalysed through a series of workshops and critical readings, developing an understanding of the interior condition. We bring in specialists from other disciplines, actively encouraging debate. You will also be expected to explore and build on your own understanding of interior space by keeping a reflective journal.

Research Methods and Research Proposal: In this unit you will develop research skills, which will aid you throughout your course and particularly in producing your thesis. You will be asked to establish a critical position within an Outline Research Proposal. You will develop techniques, which will allow you to engage proactively within your area of study. You will be encouraged to explore methods of investigation that are responsive to, as well as inquisitive of, the conditions presented and which therefore speculate around possible critical scenarios. Implicit within these explorations is the need to investigate diverse means of representation and depiction through a variety of possible media and discourse.

Integration: This unit allows you to work in a multi-disciplinary context through groups within your own subject area and across the areas of interior design, urban design, sustainable architecture and historic building conservation, as well as explore the interrelationships of all disciplines. You will need to work collectively on given projects or problems related to staff-run studios, which explore a range of given themes. These themes will be introduced at the start of the course and connect to research areas within the School.

Work-Based Learning: This unit gives you the opportunity to replace a 30-credit core unit with a work-based version of that unit. Not all units can be replaced and you will need to discuss the appropriateness of a unit with tutors. Work-based learning requires you to engage in critical and reflective learning in the workplace. This will be developed through a learning contract, negotiated by you, your employer and School. The work undertaken in practice will be appraised through critical reflective writing that engages with the practice of the particular subject discipline and this will form the assessment artefacts.

Thesis: Your thesis is a substantial research-based project that enables you to carry out an in-depth investigation into a subject area of personal interest, which is related to or developed from a theme studied during the course. The proposed research theme should have a clearly defined focus to allow for in depth theoretical, contextual and visual research.

Programme Assessment

This course is lecture and studio-based, culminating in a written or design-led thesis project. It will involve case study investigations, group work, discussion and planning of interior environments, as well as independent study to develop design or research-based responses to interior problems.

Design assessment is through studio review and taught courses are assessed by various forms of evidence-based interior design decisions and proposals. You will also carry out an in-depth research project into an area of your choice.

Student Destinations

On completing this course, you will be adept in spatial practice and able to work within your specialist discipline in design practices, architectural firms and cross-disciplinary environments. The creative skills, professional competencies and expansive learning environment that we provide has also led graduates into a range of careers in marketing, advertising, journalism, virtual design and modelling through to people-centred careers such as project management.

Alternatively, you can choose to pursue freelance opportunities, continue your studies to PhD level or even set up your own interior design practice.

Read less

Associated with the research group Cass Cities, this Spatial Planning and Urban Design MA embeds you amongst the city-focused researchers of The Cass. Architecture, urban design and planning subjects are explored while you're introduced to a live site in London at the forefront of urban change. Resources and connections across the city are here to help support you throughout your studies. In the most recent (2014-15) Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, 100% of graduates from this course were in work or further study within six months.

More about this course

The Spatial Planning and Urban Design MA is associated with Cass Cities, a group of doers, thinkers and researchers at The Cass led by Professor Mark Brearley.

The course combines the disciplines of architecture, urban design, and planning to help you become effective in all aspects of urban understanding. We'll encourage you to become an architect and architectural designer who understands how to intervene strategically in city-level architecture and planning.

Cass Cities engages in urban research and proposition. Urban change happens when people with ideas, knowledge and experience work in creative ways to transform cities. This happens through designing buildings, engaging with local communities, developing masterplans, re-thinking public transport networks and informing policy change.

We'll nurture your ability to form architectural propositions and develop a strong spatial judgement, but we'll also emphasise that there is much more to city processes than building design.

You'll work in the Cass Cities Unit alongside postgraduate architects, and every year we choose live and significant sites which are at the forefront of urban change, with a strong focus on London. There will be work on these live projects as well as the attendance of meetings on relevant topics and access to influential decision-makers in London. These resources and connections will help you direct your work in professional, practical and influential ways.

The projects produced in the unit are concerned with the shaping of both buildings and places. You'll participate in contemporary debates in all forms as a proposer, responder and observer.

Get a taste of things to come by watching this video of Professor Mark Brearley talking about the MA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkCHzBzQOcs

The course can lead to a further MA by Project or PhD research opportunities.

Assessment is through a range of methods, including written coursework submissions and design portfolio presentation.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2016/17 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:
-Design Thesis (core, 60 credits)
-Economics of Place (core, 20 credits)
-Planning and Urban Practice (core, 20 credits)
-Planning and Urban Theory (core, 20 credits)
-Research for Spatial Planning and Specialism (core, 20 credits)
-Sustainable Communities and Governance of Place (core, 20 credits)
-Urban Design (core, 20 credits)

After the course

The course is designed for practicing planners and architects wishing to specialise in urban design, as well as urban design practitioners who require knowledge of spatial planning. It is also suitable for graduates with relevant degrees who wish to obtain a postgraduate qualification in planning or urban design. Graduates of this course have gone on to become urban designers and freelance consultants.

If you are a student who has already obtained a relevant London Met first degree, especially in architecture, and wish to progress into the above professions, then we recommend you consider this MA course. Even if you come from a background that does generally do not progress into spatial planning or urban design positions, this course will be of advantage to you in your career.

Moving to one campus

Between 2016 and 2020 we're investing £125 million in the London Metropolitan University campus, moving all of our activity to our current Holloway campus in Islington, north London. This will mean the teaching location of some courses will change over time.

Whether you will be affected will depend on the duration of your course, when you start and your mode of study. The earliest moves affecting new students will be in September 2017. This may mean you begin your course at one location, but over the duration of the course you are relocated to one of our other campuses. Our intention is that no full-time student will change campus more than once during a course of typical duration.

All students will benefit from our move to one campus, which will allow us to develop state-of-the-art facilities, flexible teaching areas and stunning social spaces.

Read less

Explore and re-think the form and function of prevailing design practice and shape your ideas and concepts on this research led, critically informed course.

The MA/MDes Exhibition Design brings together a range of design disciplines to explore the interpretation and presentation of images, objects, spaces and experiences, both virtual and physical, for a range of audiences and user groups.

You’ll undertake specialist modules in exhibition design, lighting design and design interpretation. You'll shape your own ideas, concepts and theories through a self-directed major project informed by design research and critical enquiry.

This course is well connected with the local exhibition design practices industry and Scotland’s vibrant museum, heritage, tourism and events sectors.

See the website http://www.napier.ac.uk/en/Courses/MA--MDes-Exhibition-Design-Postgraduate-FullTime

What you'll learn

Playing with facts, fictions and truths you’ll be encouraged to think that we need not confine ourselves to the world as it appears. Instead, the course stresses the capacity of texts, objects and spaces to playfully precipitate new ways of thinking about the social world.

In exhibition, design interpretation and lighting modules you'll develop specific design skills which will inform and enable highly developed outcomes in your self-directed major project. Collaboration with practitioners from other areas is encouraged.

You have the option of taking an MA or MDes award, depending on whether you complete a dissertation or design project report in your final trimester.

Working with specialist tutors, the major project allows you to create and develop design outcomes for exhibitions, museum and heritage interpretation and/or site specific installations.

We have a strong studio culture supported by our multidisciplinary staff team of academics and industry-based practitioners, allowing for cross-disciplinary critiques, collaborations and partnerships which may continue into professional life.

You’ll develop creative, professional, strategic and contextual knowledge and skills and apply design thinking to a range of creative outcomes and design interventions.

Modules

• Design Research Methods
• Spatial Lighting Design
• Exhibition Design
• Interpretative Design
• Major Design Project
• For MDes Degree - Design Project Report
• For MA Degree - Design Dissertation

Study modules mentioned above are indicative only. Some changes may occur between now and the time that you study.

Careers

With a physical and digital portfolio demonstrating industry-ready skills, graduates can apply for design jobs, freelance work or establish entrepreneurial ventures.

You may also wish to continue study to MPhil or PhD level.

How to apply

http://www.napier.ac.uk/study-with-us/postgraduate/how-to-apply

SAAS Funding

Nothing should get in the way of furthering your education. Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) awards funding for postgraduate courses, and could provide the help you need to continue your studies. Find out more: http://www.napier.ac.uk/study-with-us/postgraduate/fees-and-funding/saas-funded-courses

Read less

About the course

This studio-based course will help you develop your own distinctive design practice. You’ll explore design processes and methodologies. There are opportunities to work on real-life projects with local and regional groups. You can take the course as a stand-alone MA or as preparation for a PhD via our PhD by Design programme.

Advance your career

Our graduates are architects, project managers, urban designers and client advisers.

Employers include the Olympic Park Legacy Company, Hawkins Brown, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and URBED (Urbanism, Environment and Design) Ltd. With a post-qualification degree, you could move on to a senior position or further academic research and teaching.

Learn from experts

You’ll be joining one of the largest and most diverse groups of full-time architecture academics in the country. Our staff come from the arts, physical and social sciences, and engineering. This connects our research to other disciplines and stimulates debate about the future of architecture.

Our international research projects shape policy and address public and professional needs. We integrate those projects with our teaching on courses that will develop your core skills. You’ll be encouraged to provide social and environmental solutions to the challenges of our time.

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) ranks us fourth in the UK.

Explore your ideas

You’ll have access to a lot of specialist facilities. Our media unit has a range of audio-visual and environmental equipment including artificial sky for daylight simulation, a thermal imaging camera and a mixed reality imaging suite. We have our own photography studio, reprographics unit and 3D printers. There are design studios, research rooms and computer labs.

Our teaching is more than lectures and seminars. Our student-led design projects help you learn by doing. Working with real clients on real projects, you’ll discover the benefits of socially engaged design and collaborative working. The outcomes make
a difference to communities.

Code modules

Special Design 1 ‘Live Project’; Design Project 1 and 2; Reflections on Architectural Design; Thesis Design Project; Route A – Research by Design (Theory) Critical Spatial Theory; Route B – Research by Design (Practice) Theory and Research in Design, Environment and Technology in Design.

Examples of optional modules

Reflections on Architectural Education; Conservation and Regeneration Principles and Approaches; Conservation and Regeneration Traditional Materials and Techniques; Conservation and Regeneration Policy and Law; Participation in Urban Design and Architecture; History and Theory of Urban Design; Reflection on Urban Design Practice; Principles of Building Physics for Sustainable Design; Building Environmental Simulation and Analysis; Renewable Energy; Parametric Architectural Geometry; Critical Application of Building Information Modelling.

Teaching and assessment

Learning is through studio-based design work with individual and group tutorials, block seminars and workshops, traditional lecture modules, live projects involving real clients and real community projects. You’ll be assessed on course assignments and examinations, design thesis and a dissertation.

Read less

This course is aimed at graduates from a wide range of design-related backgrounds.

Interdisciplinary research and practice is promoted throughout the course, and creative collaborations are developed between designers, fine artists, architects and thinkers wanting to follow an advanced course in interior design.

Students share spacious top-lit studios and have their own individual working spaces. There are also dedicated computer suites as well as photographic and workshop facilities.

Staff bringing their expertise to this course include:

• full-time academics who combine teaching with research and consultancy
• part-time tutors who are also practising designers
• eminent visiting specialists, critics and consultants.

Course structure

During semester 1, the projects set for the Preliminary Design module provide an opportunity for students returning to education to take stock of their position, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and identify ambitions for future study. Lecture courses in Technology and Material Practices, Critical Readings and Research Methods run in parallel.

In semester 2, you consolidate and extend the priorities, ideas and strategies established in the preliminary design. Lecture series in Technology and Critical Readings continue. A proposal for the final research project is developed and submitted, which then takes up the whole of semester 3.

The course explores both the intellectual idea and the spatial language of interior environments. Students develop new skills while extending existing design practices to precisely articulate spatial design proposals.

We offer at least one study trip each year. It might be related to the design studio or a trip that offers you direct exposure to and experience of some of the most contemporary spatial design projects in Britain and mainland Europe.

Syllabus

Our Interior Design MA is designed to promote interdisciplinary research and practice: we are looking to develop creative collaborations between fine artists, designers, architects and thinkers. Our starting point is to acknowledge the complexities and paradoxes inherent in orthodox architectural documentation in order to unearth the dubious simplifications and missed opportunities that result from the tendency to privilege the visual at the expense of our other senses.

In anticipation of 'the creative user', all our proposals originate from a close focus on the existing condition, paying particular attention to local takeovers, autonomous occupations and the blurring of boundaries of ownership and programme. In considering issues of technology, we are concerned as much with intuition, desire and chance as with precedent, economy and established practice.

Modules:

Preliminary Design
Technology and Material Practices
Optional Module
Main Design
Research Methods
Masterwork

Please visit the website to find out more about these modules:

https://www.brighton.ac.uk/courses/study/interior-design-ma-pgcert-pgdip.aspx

Facilities

• Benefit from the new Masters Centre including studio space, tutorial areas and shared creative spaces

• Modelling and construction workshops: timber and metal, dedicated 'wet' modelling bay, plastic dying facility, drill press, spray booth, vacuum former, strip bender, plastics oven, hot wire cutter and spot welder; further workshops available by arrangement with rapid prototyping and laser cutter

• IT facilities include 3D paper and printer, plotters, scanners and a reprographics suite

• Software includes Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Professional), VW2010, Cinem 4D, Premiere, Blender, AutoCAD, Maya and Rhino

• Library facilities include additional computing equipment, digital and hard copy specialist library facilities, and specialist collections

Careers and employability

Our graduates generally succeed in finding challenging and rewarding work in the public and private sectors, nationally and internationally. Brighton graduates enjoy a reputation for being creative and innovative designers, responsive to the needs of people and places. In addition, this postgraduate programme offers opportunities for experimental and exploratory work in spatial design both within and beyond the limits of professional practice.

Read less

The Liverpool School of Art and Design offers you the space to explore your creative potential and understand how its application in design can interact with, adapt and change the landscape of cities and urban spaces and our experience within them.

•Course available to study full time (1 year) and part time (2 years)
•A new programme open to applicants from a wide range of first degree disciplines such as architecture, spatial design, landscape design, environmental art, geography and planning
•Join a strong research-focused academic community
•Prestigious Susan Cotton Travel bursary and the Michael Pugh Thomas and Julia Carter Preston Legacy postgraduate study awards available
•Develop your work in state-of-the-art workspaces and facilities within the RIBA award-winning John Lennon Art and Design Building

In a world of rapidly rising and migrating urban populations, there is a palpable need for smarter, more inclusive approaches to city planning, adaptation and spatial design.

Liverpool is a creative hub with a heritage of high quality civic design and creative urban engagement. The study of Urban Design is perfectly suited to the rich infrastructure of this truly global city. Read more about the outputs from the programme by visiting the Urban Design blog.

This programme has strong links with the RIBA North and the Liverpool Biennial which, every two years, delivers an international programme of exhibitions and projects that lead to a rediscovery of the city.

Based within the School’s Architecture and Urban Design subject area, this studio-based programme is nourished by the School’s burgeoning research in Urbanism and close association with the University's European Institute for Urban Affairs.

The curriculum has creative place-making at its core and we welcome applicants from a variety of educational and professional backgrounds such as architecture, planning, landscape architecture, art and spatial design.

What you will study on this degree

Please see guidance below on core and option modules for further information on what you will study.

Research & Practice 1

An introduction to some of the common principles of research in Art and Design, tailored to help you develop the skills required to become an effective independent researcher / practitioner.

Studio Practice (Urban Design)

Upon successful completion of an urban design project, you will acquire skills to analyse contemporary urban design themes through in-depth research and the intelligent development of a critical argument. You will also be able to evaluate innovative and visionary urban design theories and precedents in the context of the project work and synthesize knowledge and skills in the production of an urban design strategy for the redevelopment of a substantial piece of cityscape.

Research & Practice 2 (Urban Design)

You will be presented with an overview of urban scale sustainable design principles and objectives. You will then explore a range of contemporary sustainable best practice case studies. These principles will then be applied in practical project work, exploring urban design sustainability benchmarks and audit methodologies. You will thereby be provided with a range of theoretical tools to support independent conceptual and critical evaluation of sustainable urban design. Tools will be explored such as to enable students to understand and evaluate the environmental impact and ecology of urban design proposals

Collaborative Practice

Here you will be given the opportunity to think through, re-situate and re-imagine how the term ‘collaboration’ can affect and develop your own developing art and design practice in the broadest sense. A framework of teaching, study and assessment that will allow the student to develop a realizable collaborative project proposal that has the capacity to be developed into a fundable/sustainable project/collaboration.

Final Major Project (Urban Design)

Through a major project you will explore and apply a contemporary urban design theme through in-depth research and intelligent development of a critical argument or creative piece of work.

Further guidance on modules

The information listed in the section entitled ‘What you will study’ is an overview of the academic content of the programme that will take the form of either core or option modules. Modules are designated as core or option in accordance with professional body requirements and internal Academic Framework review, so may be subject to change. Students will be required to undertake modules that the University designates as core and will have a choice of designated option modules. Additionally, option modules may be offered subject to meeting minimum student numbers.

Academic Framework reviews are conducted by LJMU from time to time to ensure that academic standards continue to be maintained.

Please email [email protected] if you require further guidance or clarification.

Read less

Spatial Planning determines the design of places, the relationships between land uses, and identifies infrastructure requirements. The planning process makes provision for the needs of households and the requirements of the economy, and planning aims to mitigate the adverse impacts of development upon our natural environment.

The planning system is currently undergoing change to be better able to address the challenges of competitiveness and sustainability. There is a pressing requirement in both the public and private sectors for planners with appropriate understanding and skills to plan for development and protect the environment.

The University is a long-established provider of planning education. MSc Spatial Planning will be attractive to individuals with a real interest in tackling the challenges of important urban planning issues; MSc Spatial Planning with Sustainable Urban Design is designed to equip graduates with the professional skills for resolving environmental, economic, social, cultural and spatial dimensions in designing for sustainable development.

Why choose spatial planning?

Spatial Planning is concerned with creating sustainable places. Planners achieve this in a number of ways:

Planners work with building firms and housing organisations to help make available sites addressing the housing needs of local areas. They meet with local communities to learn about their concerns and to discuss ways of tackling issues such as the protection of homes from flood risk. They provide guidance on how to promote quality in the design of places and buildings.

Planning makes possible investment in sustainable economic development. Through preparing medium and long-term plans, planners ensure that land is available for development within and around our cities and towns. Planners often lead on regeneration projects and work in partnership with engineers to bring forward the infrastructures necessary to relieve transport congestion and to provide for long-term energy solutions.

Climate change is making achieving sustainability increasingly important. Planners, work with the environmental agencies and with conservation interests to ensure that the potential environmental impacts arising from development proposals are first established and then they use planning powers to promote a sustainable balance between social and economic development and the protection of the environment.

Who becomes a planning student?

Spatial Planning is a multi-disciplinary activity and attracts a wide mix of graduates. Often these are geography graduates, but increasingly graduates with social science, law, architecture and surveying degrees, as well as graduates from the environmental sciences find that Spatial Planning makes use of their knowledge and training.

Aims of the Programme

The Spatial Planning programmes are designed to provide the knowledge, skills and understanding required for graduates wishing to enter into professional careers in urban planning and development.

Programme Content

Semester 1:
Spatial Analysis has two key components. The first component analyses built and natural environments particularly from a conservation perspective. The second part of the module focuses on socio-economic analysis of data at a city scale and the relevance of this to planning.

Statutory Planning. is a practice based approach to learning processes processes of plan-making and the management of development.Property Development Processes deals with complexities and challenges in the property development sector and the role of different stakeholders involved.

Semester 2:
Concepts of spatial planning introduces students to the role of planning and planning systems. The other part of this module introduces students to various planning theories and their relevance to practice..

Sustainability in Contemporary Cities examines various challenges facing the growth of cities globally and the implications of these to planning of cities and the countryside.

The third second semester module is optional depending on the selected specialism. Students select one specialist module from the following:

Environmental Assessment
Marine Spatial Planning
Sustainable Urban Design
Urban Conservation
Applied Geographic Information Systems and Geospatial Data Analysis

Semester 3:
A 60 credit dissertation in line with the selected specialism

Methods of Assessment

Assessment methods cover a mix of formats including 'live' project-work and a research project. There are no written examinations. The educational aims are to develop subject understanding and to equip students with research and practice skills. Assignments call for visioning, problem-solving, forward-planning and critical reflection. Assignments are informed by students making effective use of available literature, conducting investigations and accessing sources of data. Attention is paid to building the effective communication and partnering skills vital for practicing professional planners.

Sources of Funding

Information about the School of the Environment scholarships can be found on the School of the Environment scholarships webpage. Other sources of funding for postgraduate students can be found on our Scholarships webpage.
SAAS tuition fee loans are available for this course for students who meet the eligibility criteria. Visit our SAAS tuition fee loan webpage for more information and links.

Read less

The Inter-disciplinary Urban Design MRes is a faculty-wide one-year research degree designed to allow students to tailor their own learning to their background and future aspirations. Students can construct their study in an inter-disciplinary manner, enabling them to explore urban design as a critical arena for advanced research and practice.

Degree information

This programme provides an interdisciplinary space in which students can examine the challenges of urban design from comparative disciplinary perspectives; students are exposed to the latest cutting-edge urban design research and teaching at the UCL Bartlett and are offered the opportunity to conduct a substantial piece of individual urban design research, receiving training in methodologies appropriate to the conduct of urban design and urban scale research.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits.

The programme consists of two core modules (totalling 105 credits), and either a 15,000-word dissertation or a 10,000-word disssertation and a research-based design proposal (75 credits).

Core modules
-Inter-disciplinary Urban Design - this module draws from a range of named feeder modules from across The Bartlett and across UCL (see below)
-Urban Investigations - this module explores cutting-edge research and research techniques in urban design

Feeder modules
-Adaptable Cities
-Architectural Phenomena
-Cities, Space & Power
-Creative Cities
-Design as a Knowledge-Based Process
-Design and Real Estate
-Detailed Urban Design
-Embodied and Embedded Technologies, Cities as Interface
-Environmental Masterplanning
-From Strategic Vision to Urban Plan
-Geographic Information Systems and Science
-London, Aspects of Change
-Participatory Process: Building for Development
-Public Space & the City
-Social Dimensions of Sustainability
-Spatial Modelling and Simulation
-Spatial Cultures
-Spatial Justice
-Strategic Urban Design
-Theorising Practices: Architecture, Art & Urbanism

Dissertation/research project
All students undertake an independent urban design research project culminating in either a dissertation of 15,000 words or a 10,000-word dissertation and a research-based design proposal.

Teaching and learning
Methods of delivery will vary (because of the flexible nature of the programme) but a typical student might encounter studio teaching, formal lectures, analytical modelling, small-group tutorials and discussion, formal presentations, and site visits. Student performance is assessed through individual and group work, essays, and project work.

Careers

The programme opens up a range of future opportunities for participants along two primary paths:
-It provides an opportunity for students seeking to further their professional careers, to specialise in urban design and, within that broad arena, to engage deeply with a particular research agenda of direct relevance to their future professional practice.
-For students seeking a research or academic career, the MRes provides the ideal training for a PhD and eventually an academic or other research position.

The first cohort of students on this programme graduated in 2015. A significant proportion - approximately 50% - are embarking on PhD studies, while others are developing their professional careers in a range of research, institutional or professional settings.

Employability
The programme is globally unique and will give students an important employment edge in allowing them to tailor their studies to their own individual circumstances, building on existing strengths or extending their knowledge. It will deliver a research training in urban design whilst also helping to build a unique and first-class portfolio of work in which the student, rather than syllabus, is the driving force.

Why study this degree at UCL?

The UCL Bartlett brings together literally dozens of scientific and professional specialisms required to research, understand, design, construct and operate the buildings and urban environments of the future.

This MRes is a faculty-wide programme, and students are able to access perhaps the largest global concentration of urban design related researchers and professional expertise.

The programme has a simple and highly flexible structure, designed to allow students to tailor their learning both to their own background, and how they wish to specialise in the future.

Read less

Explore the use of light in interior and exterior spaces, learn from internationally renowned designers, and develop your technical knowledge and creative skills.

This is one of only a small number of postgraduate lighting design courses in the world.

You’ll explore the use of light in interior and exterior spaces and light as a medium for creative practice. You’ll learn combined technical and creative skills, and user centred knowledge to apply lighting design principles.

You’ll have the opportunity to shape your own ideas, concepts and theories through a self-directed major project, informed by design research and critical enquiry.

Taught by award winning and internationally renowned lighting designers, you’ll develop specialised skills and knowledge to prepare you for a career in lighting design.

See the website http://www.napier.ac.uk/en/Courses/MA--MDes-Lighting-Design-Postgraduate-FullTime

What you'll learn

In specialist lighting design, exhibition design and light art modules you’ll develop design skills which will inform and enable highly developed outcomes in your self-directed major project.

Working with specialist tutors, the major project allows you to create and develop design outcomes for public spaces, exhibitions, and/or site specific installations.

This course is part of a suite of post-graduate design courses and promotes an interdisciplinary approach. Collaboration with practitioners from other areas is encouraged. You have the option of taking an MA or MDes award, depending on whether you complete a dissertation or design project report.

We have a strong studio culture supported by our multidisciplinary staff team of academics and industry based practitioners. You’ll develop creative, professional, strategic and contextual knowledge and skills and apply design thinking to a range of creative outcomes and design interventions.

Modules

• Design Research Methods
• Spatial Lighting Design
• Exhibition Design
• Major Design Project
• Light Art & Projection
• For MDes Degree - Design Project Report
• For MA Degree - Design Dissertation

Study modules mentioned above are indicative only. Some changes may occur between now and the time that you study.

Careers

With a physical and digital/online portfolio demonstrating industry-ready skills, graduates can apply for design jobs, freelance work or establish entrepreneurial ventures.

You may also continue to study to MPhil or PhD level.

How to apply

http://www.napier.ac.uk/study-with-us/postgraduate/how-to-apply

SAAS Funding

Nothing should get in the way of furthering your education. Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) awards funding for postgraduate courses, and could provide the help you need to continue your studies. Find out more: http://www.napier.ac.uk/study-with-us/postgraduate/fees-and-funding/saas-funded-courses

Read less

Spatial Planning determines the design of places, the relationships between land uses, and identifies infrastructure requirements. The planning process makes provision for the needs of households and the requirements of the economy, and planning aims to mitigate the adverse impacts of development upon our natural environment.

Marine Spatial Planning is a new field arising from new legislation geared to sustainable use of the marine environment. New planning procedures are being introduced and new skills are required to engage with the process. It is aimed at environmental planners and consultants working with local authorities, regulatory bodies, government, land owners and NGOs.

Why choose spatial planning?

Spatial Planning is concerned with creating sustainable places, Planners achieve this in a number of ways:

Planners work with building firms and housing organisations to help make available sites addressing the housing needs of local areas. They meet with local communities to learn about their concerns and to discuss ways of tackling issues such as the protection of homes from flood risk. They provide guidance on how to promote quality in the design of places and buildings.

Planning makes possible investment in sustainable economic development. Through preparing medium and long-term plans, planners ensure that land is available for development within and around our cities and towns. Planners often lead on regeneration projects and work in partnership with engineers to bring forward the infrastructures necessary to relieve transport congestion and to provide for long-term energy solutions.

Climate change is making achieving sustainability increasingly important. Planners, work with the environmental agencies and with conservation interests to ensure that the potential environmental impacts arising from development proposals are first established and then they use planning powers to promote a sustainable balance between social and economic development and the protection of the environment.

Who becomes a planning students?

Spatial Planning is a multi-disciplinary activity and attracts a wide mix of graduates. Often these are geography graduates, but increasingly graduates with social science, law, architecture and surveying degrees, as well as graduates from the environmental sciences find that Spatial Planning makes use of their knowledge and training.

Aims of the Programme

The Spatial Planning programmes are designed to provide the knowledge, skills and understanding required for graduates wishing to enter into professional careers in urban planning and development.

Programme Content

Semester 1:
Spatial Analysis has two key components. The first component analyses built and natural environments particularly from a conservation perspective. The second part of the module focuses on socio-economic analysis of data at a city scale and the relevance of this to planning.

Statutory Planning. is a practice based approach to learning processes processes of plan-making and the management of development.

Property Development Processes deals with complexities and challenges in the property development sector and the role of different stakeholders involved.

Semester 2:

Concepts of spatial planning introduces students to the role of planning and planning systems. The other part of this module introduces students to various planning theories and their relevance to practice.

Sustainability in Contemporary Cities examines various challenges facing the growth of cities globally and the implications of these to planning of cities and the countryside.

The third second semester module is optional depending on the selected specialism. Students select one specialist module from the following:

Environmental Assessment
Marine Spatial Planning
Sustainable Urban Design
Urban Conservation
Applied Geographic Information Systems and Geospatial Data Analysis
Semester 3:

A 60 credit dissertation in line with the selected specialism

Methods of Assessment

Assessment methods cover a mix of formats including 'live' project-work and a research project. There are no written examinations. The educational aims are to develop subject understanding and to equip students with research and practice skills. Assignments call for visioning, problem-solving, forward-planning and critical reflection. Assignments are informed by students making effective use of available literature, conducting investigations and accessing sources of data. Attention is paid to building the effective communication and partnering skills vital for practicing professional planners.

Sources of Funding

Information about the School of the Environment scholarships can be found on the School of the Environment scholarships webpage. Other sources of funding for postgraduate students can be found on our Scholarships webpage.

SAAS tuition fee loans are available for this course for students who meet the eligibility criteria. Visit our SAAS tuition fee loan webpage for more information and links.

Read less