Interior Design

Course Structure

1. 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. This unit is supported by contributions from lecturers within the School, practitioners within the field and those working within fine art practice.
2. 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. This journal will allow you to locate your ideas and practice in relation to contemporary debate on cultural and theoretical issues.
3. 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.
4. 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. There will be a group-based activity that is either subject specific or spans different areas of the disciplines as agreed by tutors.
5. 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. Where professional body criteria and attributes need to be evidenced, these will form the minimum requirements of the learning outcomes.
6. 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.