Foundation Year
Building skills and knowledge to prepare for Interior Architecture and Design programmes of Years 1 – 3. Learning to self-manage academic development.
Year 1 (Level 4)
Intensive introduction to the knowledge, skills and techniques of Interior Architecture and Design (IAD). Students learn how to observe, analyse, represent and communicate the qualities of existing spaces, besides exploring how designers improve such spaces. The emphasis is on understanding and developing proficiency in a wide range of design, representational as well as communication techniques. In addition, students are introduced to the basics of materiality, construction and detailing.
Semester 1
Design Studio 1: Anatomy of Space
• Analyse inter-relationships between inhabitation and design.
Communication 1: Representing Space
• Different ways of drawing, measuring and communicating the characteristics of material space and form.
Technology 1: Introducing Materiality
• Introduces physical making, prototyping and testing.
Critical and Cultural Studies L4: Design
• Introduce the recent history of design and ways that shaped contemporary design practice and debate.
Semester 2
Design Studio 2: Serious Play
• Introduces the basics of the design process.
Sustainability: Past, Present and Future
• Introduce main concepts on the issue of sustainability, relationships to contemporary art, design and media practices.
Communication 2: Digital Skills
• Using and developing CAD skills and mediums.
Year 2 (Level 5)
Overall aim of building upon the knowledge and skills developed in Level 4, to broaden as well as deepen their competency in Interior Architecture and Design. Students are encouraged to engage with some key contemporary issues, apart from learning ways to develop their design exploration and experimentation. This enables them to be more self-directed in their design processes, in order to produce coherent and complex design resolutions.
Semester 1
Design Studio 3: Close-Up
• Enabling students to develop detailed reworking and transformation of existing built spaces at the 1:1 scale.
Technology 2: Detail
• Explores design thinking in conjunction with 1:1 physical exploration.
Sustainability in Practice
• Explores the current debate on sustainability as a positive mechanism for change.
Communication 3: Digital Skills 2
• Developing proficiency in 3D CAD Modelling and Rendering/Digital Fabrication.
Semester 2
Design Studio 4: Inside Out
• Developing student's own position and understanding how the urban scale is represented in interior architecture and design.
Critical and Cultural Studies L5: Design
• Consider theoretical positions that inform recent and contemporary practice.
Professional Development 1: Preparing for Industry
• Includes several forms of peer appraisal in areas such as role play interviews and reading.
Year 3 (Level 6)
This level gives students the opportunity to integrate all skills and knowledge developed in previous years in response to a specific design problem in order to illustrate an engagement with some aspect of contemporary Interior Architecture and Design Practice. Students are given a prospect to decide on a major area of specialization for their final project through development of research proposal. Great emphasis is then put upon the strategies of working within “existing fabrics” which allows student to examine and exploit the potential of a designed space thus making grander design in quality, extent and value.
Semester 1
Design Studio 5: Generator
• Investigate how Interior Architecture and Design can take on a truly transformational role.
Technology 3: Contemporary Technologies
• Self-initiated exploration of thematic cutting edge technologies relating to spatial practices.
Critical and Cultural Studies L6: Degree Essay/ Report (Design)
• Enable students to conduct an in-depth enquiry of design culture with analysis.
Semester 2
Design Studio 6: Augment
• Develop focus on projects closely connected with design research and technological investigations.
Professional Development 2: Professional Practice & Employability
• Develop understanding of approaches, practices and opportunities within the discipline’s contemporary practice.
Internship
• Internship for 6 months.
General Studies
• Subjects are compulsary for all students throughout the 3-year course.
