COURSE IN DEPTH
Year one
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 120 credits):
Modules include:
Re-ordering Space
20 credits
This module enables students to [re]order spatial activities and space planning to design creative and innovative interiors by exploring spatial concepts, their design and representation. These are key components in the repertoire of the interior architect and designer. This module focuses on your understanding of the relationships between adjacent spaces/activities, spatial hierarchies, and the more ephemeral qualities of light, shade, and colour.
Manipulating Space
20 credits
This design and make module seeks to embed an understanding of human physicality and the manipulation of space, which will enable you to design with user centred considerations in mind and appreciate and develop awareness of the interface between products/artefacts/environments and users. This module explores and challenges the physical, psychological and emotional factors that influence user responses to their environments and actions in their everyday life.
Transforming Space 1
40 credits
This module is the first one of a series that will culminate in your final major project. You will be asked to develop an interior design project within a given brief. On this first level of the Transforming Space series, you will be approaching the design of a single-function space.
You are expected to undertake research on a programme you are not familiar with and integrate and articulate it within a given site. You will also have to demonstrate the ability to apply relevant knowledge presented through specialised seminars, workshops and lectures to your interior design project.
Twentieth Century Design Cultures
20 credits
This module engages with the key design ideologies of the 20th Century. The History of Western Architecture has an on-going complex relationship with Modernism. Despite having moved beyond Modernism and post-modernism, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the designed environment; buildings, furniture, interiors and the public realm, still holds traces of and responds to elements of the Modernist ideologies. This Module will enable you to engage with design precedents from the 20th Century through a series of lectures and seminars. You will learn about their history and the social, political and cultural context that gave rise to specific design movements within this period.
Design Devices
20 credits
This module builds on the introduction you have had to communication approaches within the discipline of interiors and will provide you with a deeper awareness and understanding of a variety of industry relevant communication methods, while also developing the breadth and depth of your visualisation language. This will include ways in which design concepts are demonstrated through appropriate portfolio techniques, leading toward you becoming a design aware and industry aware student.
Year two
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 100 credits):
Interior Strategies
40 credits
This module will enable you to approach the challenges that the discipline of Interior Architecture and Design present from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Interior Architecture and Design is a young discipline that draws its language mainly from the discipline of Architecture. It has yet to define its own distinctive methods. It is also a field that draws on many other fields to inform itself, such as the arts, literature, film, photography, fashion, etc. and so, by its nature, touches many disciplines.
Transforming Space 2
40 credits
This module is the second in a series of Transforming Space modules that will culminate in your final major project. You will be asked to develop an interior design project within a given brief. On this second level of the Transforming Space series, you will be approaching the design of a mix-use space.
You are expected to undertake research on a programme you are not familiar with and integrate and articulate the spatial functions set on the brief. At this level you will be asked to make a critical choice amongst several options that can involve several sites, spatial functions... etc., to further explain the brief.
Design Communication
20 credits
The main focus of this module is to enable you to develop more advanced CAD skills (SolidWorks) and use these in relation to the design process. As your skills develop you will be expected to utilise and correctly synthesise the SolidWorks program in line with industry recognised production methods and techniques. This will enable you to develop and realise designed concepts using digital technologies and to effectively communicate design intentions within the context of manufacturing and industry.
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete at least 20 credits from the following list of OPTIONAL modules:
Praxis (Work placement)
20 credits
The purpose of this module is to enable you to develop professional attributes and subject skills through experience in the work place or a live case study, and to critically reflect upon your learning and future options in that context. You will normally be expected to arrange your own placement, with support from academic staff and BCU Careers. Typically, the placement duration is 1 or 2 weeks. This should be achieved in one block where possible. It is also possible to fulfil this module through a case study, via physical interview of a current practise if placement becomes unattainable.
Collaborative Practice
20 credits
The module is an opportunity to learn and critically reflect on the skills of collaboration by enabling you to create an interdisciplinary project with students from complementary disciplines, or with academic staff. Collaboration is a vital employability skill within the Creative Industries and this module allows you to develop these skills, making use of University facilities and with the support of academic staff. Within this module framework, several kinds of collaborative opportunities are available. For example, with the approval of your supervisor, you can determine a project based on your own interests; your supervisor may set you a predetermined project to enable you to work with other students in a way that is appropriate to your subject area; or there may be opportunities for you to collaborate with staff on research projects. In all cases, you must apply your subject skills to an interdisciplinary project which will be agreed in advance with your supervisor.
Live project
20 credits
This module provides an opportunity for you to apply your knowledge and skills to an external, professional brief. The brief will be set by an external client/ agency, in consultation with your supervisor, and it could be a ‘real life’ problem to be solved, or a simulation. It is an opportunity for you to engage in a professional manner with an aspect of your subject area, which contributes to the development of employability skills within the supportive infrastructure of the University. Where appropriate, the project may involve interdisciplinary collaboration with students from other courses. In this way, it reflects the collaborative, flexible nature of employment within the Creative Industries.
Core modules are guaranteed to run. Optional modules will vary from year to year and the published list is indicative only.
Year three
In order to complete this course you must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 120 credits).
Showcase your work to industry leaders looking for new talent, such as Free Range London, presenting yourself as a design aware industry ready interior designer.
Critical Study
20 credits
The combination of applied contextual research & preparatory analysis is at the forefront of the developmental procedures of design. Often the in-depth investigation and critical analysis of contextual factors not only outlines opportunities for the advancement of design practice, but further defines the constraints of any practical applications in design methods & techniques. In all senses the planning and preparation of relevant materials to support the design process is essential, along with the ability to self-manage individual activities.
Design Integration
40 credits
This module will enable you to discover the challenges of exploring design feasibility related to multiple projects within the discipline of Interior Architecture and Design from a professional perspective. Taking 2-3 project titles as potential outline briefs, alongside specific existing sites, objectively interrogate them by exploring the potential of design, technology, structure and professional practice. With objectivity you will synthesise each outcome, leading to an emergence of one stronger feasible project.
Major project
60 credits
The purpose of the module is to enable you to undertake a sustained, in-depth and theoretically informed research project exploring an area that is of personal interest to you. It is important that we can support you appropriately, so you will be guided towards choosing a research topic which is relevant to your discipline and in which your lecturers have expertise. The outcome may take the form of a written dissertation or a practice-based portfolio.
