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This pathway enables you to develop your own individual approach to spatial design within a creative multi-disciplinary environment . It supports the development of a personal trajectory while providing room for exploration, and encourages you to explore ideas and issues concerning design of the interior in numerous environments, from the room to the city. You can explore areas of landscape architecture, exhibition design, interior design, furniture design and design for the stage.
Course Overview
Our Master’s programme has been designed to support and enhance the skills of art and design practitioners who want to work in the cultural and creative industries. Awarded by Falmouth University and delivered in partnership with Hearst Magazines UK, publishers of ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, together we have designed an exciting and industry-connected Master’s to equip you for the real world.
The 12-month MA supports students across a range of Art & Design specialisms and you will be given the unique opportunity to explore your area within an interdisciplinary global culture. Bringing together students from a variety of disciplines through dialogue, idea-exchange and collaborative activities, the course prepares students for the hybrid and dynamic nature of contemporary creative practice. By enabling the pursuit of specialist subject expertise alongside opportunities to acquire the skills, experience and outlook necessary for professional success, we give our graduates the confidence to take the next step toward building their own creative futures.
The course is open to graduates from any art and design related degree subject and who already have knowledge and experience of a specialist area. Our MA will allow you to enhance your skills within your existing area, taking it in your own direction with support from a subject tutor. We currently support pathways in Fine Art, Communication Design, Illustration, Animation, Photography, Fashion Design, Fashion Communication, Product Design, Craft and Spatial Design.
Alternatively, you may be looking for a Master’s degree, but you are not clear which specialist pathway to follow, this course is designed to support those students arriving from a variety of undergraduate programmes with varying degrees of focus. The scope of the award in Art & Design is flexible enough to provide opportunities for you to experiment and try out new approaches before finding your focus.
Unique Opportunities
This programme offers outstanding specialist tuition combined with extensive academic contact and studio access. As a Master’s student, you will have:
The inter-disciplinary nature of the course and the teaching team, along with the wider staff expertise within the college means that specific tuition can be provided on a ‘bespoke’ basis if and when needs arise. In addition to support from academic staff, you will have regular group and one-to-one access to our Study Skills Coordinator for support with writing, research and academic skills.
Our dedicated Welfare Team are resourced and prepared to support all students. Should you require help with English language, support is available from our in-house provision.
Course Structure
The course is structured to provide you with a wide range of activities in the modules at the start of the course, together with the opportunity to experiment and explore different methods and approaches. As you move through the programme you will then start to focus and identify individual ambitions, and plan and execute your final project.
Semester One
EXPERIMENTAL PRACTICE
Introduces you to new methods and approaches. You will take part in a series of set projects, which will encourage collaboration, experimental practice and creative activity.
THEORY AND RESEARCH
Within this module you will be exposed to a series of lectures and seminars around a series of shared themes that cut across theory and practice. You will be inspired to try out fresh and innovative methods in practice and you will work collaboratively and individually.
Semester Two
FOCUSING PRACTICE
This module will support your development of independent and self-initiated project work in your specialist area. To build your portfolio you will take part in live briefs set by our partners in the creative industries and supported to enter local and international competitions.
ART & DESIGN FUTURES
You will be asked to look ahead by engaging in the issues shaping the professional practice of art and design today. Lecturer talks will introduce you to a diverse range of contemporary art and design practices to inspire and orient your own career pathways. This module also gives you the opportunity to organise and complete a work placement enabling you to gain valuable professional experience.
Semester Three
FINAL MAJOR PROJECT
You will spend the final semester working on a self-initiated project in your area of specialism, underpinned by the cross discipline culture of the course. Your final submission will be a portfolio of work and a written report culminating in a final MA show.
Careers and Employability
With staff and visiting tutors active in the creative industries worldwide as researchers and practitioners, as artists, designers, writers, and curators you will be exposed to issues, debates and challenges that are transforming art and design practice in the 21st century.
More specifically, the modules encourage you to reflect upon the broad and hybrid nature of art and design and the emerging global workplace in which you will ultimately take your next steps. To offer you real-world experience through live briefs and the work placements, we collaborate with both international media and communication organisations (such as our partner Hearst Magazines UK) as well as local creative businesses on our doorstep in Cambridge—one of the UK’s centres of leading-edge creativity and innovation.
Visit the website for full specifications: http://www.csvpa.com/art-and-design/ma-art-design/course-details/about.htm
Click here to apply online: https://www.csvpa.com/apply-online/step1
Our MA Product Design course provides a conceptual process and context for the development of creative and innovative products. This includes the study of socio-cultural and economic issues, new technologies and creative visual language in relation to your practice.
As a student on our course, you'll undertake individual research projects using an integrated product design process. You'll also develop and communicate design solutions which align with design criteria and respond to broader issues such as lifestyles, markets or the information economy.
On this course you'll benefit from seminar sessions with visiting professional product designers. They'll provide critical feedback to advance your design concepts to prototype stage, in order to ready them for final exhibition and commercial manufacture.
You'll also have seminar sessions with visiting professional product designers, who provide critical feedback to advance your design concepts to prototype stage, ready for final exhibition and commercial manufacture.
The Centre for Sustainable Design is based at our Farnham campus, too. This research centre facilitates discussion and research on eco-design, and broader sustainability considerations, in product and service development.
Our range of industry contacts include:
-Industrial Design Consultancy
-TheAlloy (product and interaction consultants)
-IDEO (design consultants)
-Philips
-Kenwood/De'Longhi.
And recent guest lecturers include:
-John Gertsakis, product ecology
-Philip Davies
-Stuart Heron, Design Director.
Our course will equip you with a host of valuable and transferable skills. Graduate opportunities exist within:
-Product design practice
-Independent design studios
-Specialist design consultancies
-Design teams in manufacturing industry
-Design management
-Environmental management
-Service design sectors.
Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.
This innovative, industry-facing programme allows you to work in a cross-disciplinary way or in a specialist area of study. Students on this course come from a diverse range of disciplines to apply ideas and findings from research towards problem-solving, social design and environmental issues. Approaches to future design range from the artistic design, such as illustration, printmaking, book arts and decorative arts, to more functional and problem-solving pursuits.
Creative, forward-thinking individuals and groups are key contributors to the new economic and social agenda. We welcome applications from disciplines outside of art and design if there is evidence of ability and desire to develop better systems, services, products and experiences.
You learn through initiatives and activities that stimulate and develop creative practice, problem solving, manufacture and distribution. Thinking, making and observation are applied to practical and social contexts. Playful and fictional approaches are encouraged through workshops and connections with international events and research projects. Future design challenges us to enquire into what happens next – in our careers, ambitions and responsibility to society. Knowledge and awareness in futurology are increasingly desirable attributes in business, employment, innovation and enterprise. Creative individuals prepare for professional practice, developing new business ideas, products, systems and services. Working in a stimulating environment you explore emerging and future aspects of design practice, through individual and collaborative action. Project-based learning activities enable knowledge, skills and experience to be acquired according to negotiated plans and professional directions. This two-year programme enhances your qualification by spending one semester completing a vocational internship, research internship or by studying abroad. Although we can’t guarantee an internship, we can provide you with practical support and advice on how to find and secure your own internship position. A vocational internship is a great way to gain work experience and give your CV a competitive edge. Alternatively, a research internship develops your research and academic skills as you work as part of a research team in an academic setting – ideal if you are interested in a career in research or academia. A third option is to study abroad in an academic exchange with one of our partner universities. This option does incur additional costs such as travel and accommodation. You must also take responsibility for ensuring you have the appropriate visa to study outside the UK, where relevant.
The programme begins with group research projects, sharing information and references from diverse sources. Collecting and analysing information from a theme of common interest helps to develop your awareness of the subject from multiple perspectives. Stage one involves developing your professional skills, ideas, research, project work and provides the opportunity for co-working, partnerships and collaborations. Your interests are evaluated for their enterprise potential and innovative outputs are proposed.
Stage two culminates in a feasibility study for a negotiated research project. Stage three enhances your learning through practice with the potential to spend one semester working full-time in industry, on a major research project, or studying or working abroad.
Stage four enables you to direct and display your major project work, supported by regular tutorial contact and studio interaction. You show future ambitions and plans for the project including how it may be distributed or realised beyond the University.
Course structure
Core modules
Advanced Practice options
Modules offered may vary.
How you learn
At MA level it is vital that you take an active role in structuring your own learning, and engage with the relevant methods and underpinning theories of your discipline.
Tutorials, seminars and workshops enable you to apply key learning principles to your day-to-day interactions. Individual support, provided by a personal tutor, is an integral feature of the learning and teaching strategy.
Research is also an intrinsic part of your study. You need to find and make sense of a wide variety of information from books, newspapers, journals, magazines, websites, archives and many other sources, then analyse and discuss your findings to inform the creative process. Lectures and briefings introduce topics and impart key aspects of disciplinary knowledge, usually to larger groups.
You develop your practical and professional skills with hands-on experience, informed by subject knowledge and critical understanding. Practical workshops introduce specific skills, followed by independent learning, project work, tutorials and critiques.
Critical reflection is key to all successful problem solving and is essential to the design process. You are expected to test and assess your solutions against design criteria which you develop in the light of your research.
How you are assessed
Your assessments are primarily in-course assessments – you submit work during the module rather than sit timed exams at the end.
Design modules are generally project based and primarily assessed through appraising your portfolio of work, often accompanied by a verbal presentation. Design work is largely developmental and you are assessed on your problem-solving process as well as the result, so it is essential you provide clear evidence of your development work.
Work placement
There may be short-term placement opportunities for some students, particularly during the project phase of the course.
Career opportunities
Graduates have the opportunity to go on to a range of design-related employment, develop new enterprise propositions or receive project funding to take their ideas to market.
You can work across a range of professions within design and the creative industries such as freelance designers, creative entrepreneurs, designer makers and creative directors. Further study at doctoral level is also an option.
Working across the disciplines of architecture, art and cultural geography, our Architectural and Urban Design MA combines critical debate and creative practice to help you develop as a designer who will plan the urban environments of the future.
You will benefit from a supportive studio environment, two field trips and a variety of workshops and seminars, taught by active practitioners in architecture and urban design. You will engage with research on the analysis of cities and lead your own projects, speculating as to how cities will evolve and be used in the future.
The course is highly experimental and aims to stretch your imagination and critical ability. You will produce innovative portfolios and learn about the issues of global urban environments, expanding your knowledge beyond the usual subject boundaries.
Urbanism and urban design are ambiguous terms that surround and reflect both the physical and mental attributes applied to the built environment.
The material of roads, pavements, buildings, railways, bridges and so on represents the physical. The mental is represented by narratives, histories, personal perceptions and anticipations.
The two sensibilities combine to form a layered knowledge of the city, which could be compared to a mature palimpsest or to semi-obscured archaeology. In this context, we study the city with emphasis on the space of the private realm and its seamless engagement with the public domain.
Take a look at our architecture and interior architecture blogand our 2016 yearbook, which documents student work from across our architecture courses.
Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through our applicant portal.
The course is taught over 3 semesters over 12 months.
Design 1: Urban Strategies
This module introduces you to design strategies, methods and issues pertinent to your design studio, helping you to explore the potential of different approaches to design. There is a strong emphasis on the development of conceptual ideas and their correlation with the development of design strategy, helping you to articulate your individual position as a design practitioner.
Design 2
Design 2 aims to consolidate and extend the priorities, ideas and strategies established in Design 1. You will explore architectural and urban ideas in more depth and complexity. The emphasis here is on curiosity and speculation, supporting the development of methods to help with enquiry, reflection and debate.
Independent Project
The independent project runs concurrently and is concerned with your identification of places of ‘conflict’ and negotiations of space. The module encourages experimentation in a specific field of study. Students have developed projects in fields of architectural and artistic practice, creative design, techniques of communication or new technologies.
Critical Readings
The Critical Readings module will develop your skills in critical practice through an analysis of cultural, historical, theoretical and practical issues in architecture. It provides the opportunity to carry out initial investigations into the ideas that will drive your Masterwork project.
Research Skills and Training
Research Skills and Training introduces you to the challenges involved in designing, implementing and disseminating a research project. You will develop a written proposal that can inform the development of your Masterwork project, encouraging you to consider how your investigations contribute to the academic knowledge in your field.
Masterwork
The Masterwork is the final stage of study, requiring you to perform as a self-reflective critical researcher and lay down the foundations for innovation in your future practice. You will develop your project from an agreed research proposal, which may be either a text-based dissertation or a design-led research project with critical reflection. You will be asked to focus the areas of interest that have developed in your previous practice and studies, identify research questions and develop research methods, bringing critical investigation and creative responses together.
The Architectural and Urban Design MA gives you a deep understanding of the issues involved in contemporary practice. As you evolve your own specialist work, you will discover ways to reimagine and reshape the contemporary urban environment.
Our graduates have gone on to be professional architects, academics and urban designers in the UK, Vietnam, Russia, Palestine, Japan, Taiwan, Kenya, Turkey, Lithuania and other countries. Among our alumni are award-winning architects Wei Jiang and Quang Nguyen, who are based in Shanghai and London respectively.
Our aim is to develop teachers whose vision, imagination and professionalism takes them beyond the realities of current educational policy, and encourage them to continually seek to evolve new and better models of practice
Goldsmiths' Department of Design runs the PGCE (Secondary) in Design & Technology. The curriculum includes working with resistant materials (product design), systems and control (electronics, CAD/CAM), textiles, and food technology. What unifies these is the subject of Design, and the development of designing competence.
This programme is aimed at preparing you to teach in two broad areas.
You’ll be given the opportunity to specialise in one area to Key Stage 3 (age 11-14), and another to Key Stage 4 and beyond (age 14+). Key Stage 3 specialist fields are Materials; Textiles; Electronics and Communications Technology; and Food. The two Key Stage 4 specialist fields are Materials and Textiles.
Through an integrated course that involves both a practical and theoretical approach, you’ll be encouraged to reach your potential as a fully qualified teacher.
School Direct
It is also possible to study this course via our School Direct programme. Please visit our School Direct page to see which schools offer this subject.
Additional costs
As well as the PGCE fees, you will have to cover your travel costs to your school placements.
We produce reading packs electronically and in hard copy format. There’s a small charge for the hard copy reading packs. You may also be asked to contribute towards trips and some materials for your modules.
College-based work
There are seminars examining the nature of Design and Technology education, and workshops designed to develop your subject expertise. By the end of the programme you must offer a second area of competence to teach to the end of Key Stage 3, as well as your specialist area at Key Stages 4 and 5.
You engage in two design activities: one in the first term, and the second throughout the year.
The first activity is mirrored by the same project being undertaken by Year 9 pupils in a local school, and culminates in a shared presentation.
The second activity culminates in a presentation of a personal design-and-make project to your peers, to consider and reflect on the nature of the process of designing.
School-based work
During the Autumn Term you are placed in your first school, usually with a partner Design and Technology student teacher. The aim is induction, both into schooling and the teaching of design and technology, and into learning and teaching practices.
You do this by:
You design a scheme of work for the Key Stage 3 curriculum, and develop your understanding of pupil learning styles, National Curriculum requirements, assessment and examinations.
A range of teaching methods are employed across the PGCE programmes, including:
As with the other PGCE courses, you’ll be given the opportunity to work with children in a wide range of contexts. These might include focused interventions with individuals or groups, or larger scale events for the community.
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