Interiors (Architecture and Design) MA

MA Interiors (Architecture & Design) encourages creative investigation, experimentation and innovation in order to extend your knowledge and skills in the creation of new environments. The potential of the ‘interior’ is explored across a range of contemporary contexts, through field research and interpretation, studio workshop and media practices, critical analysis and design. On the course you will develop your individual practice and approach to the design of interior spaces and places.

Why study MA Interiors (Architecture and Design) at Middlesex University?

As public, political and commercial concern grows with the future suitability and sustainability of our urban environments, the need for inspired and innovative leadership in the re-imagining, re-use and transformation of our existing buildings and interiors becomes ever more urgent. This course is structured to allow you to identify and explore your own particular interests within interiors, enabling you to investigate examples of conceptual and spatial manifestation and application. You will generate propositions to test, demonstrate and explain your approach, and to develop in-depth strategies by which your ideas and proposals can be implemented. You will challenge and redefine what constitutes the 'interior' through experimental learning, making, designing, critical analysis, and narrative techniques. You will gain the relevant contemporary knowledge, advanced design skills and subject insights to develop, consolidate, apply and promote a personal design practice that can meet the tests and challenges of tomorrow.

MA Interiors is part of a suite of postgraduate creative courses that follow a common structure and share a commitment to cross-disciplinary and collaborative learning and study. You will be guided and supported by expert practitioners, academics and technical staff from a range of subject fields, and make full use of the state-of-the-art specialist technical facilities and resources on campus.

Course highlights

• Our facilities are among the best in the UK, with cutting edge technologies, such as 3D printing, 2D laser-cutting, CNC Routing, large format digital printing, all available in a dedicated workshop with expert technical support
• An exhibition of your work in central London to create networking opportunities, build industry contacts in a professional environment
• Direct access to London's design world with valuable industry links to a range of industry specialists, galleries, studios, businesses, libraries and collections
• Access to networking opportunities, world-leading research and expertise through the Art & Design Research Institute (ADRI) on campus
• As a student of this course you'll receive a free electronic textbook for every module.

What will you study on the MA Interiors (Architecture and Design)?

This course is divided into five modules taken over three terms (if studied full time). Each module is designed to be flexible, allowing you to bring your own interests to the assignments while extending the boundaries of your current creative practice through research, design development and creative exploration via a formal design proposal.

The majority of the course will be centred on the development of 3 books that when combined will read as a collection/3 volumes of study. Ideas will be shown at an external public exhibition. This will be supported by a series of outputs and reviewed through regular presentations to assist in the progress of each project. You will also address postgraduate research and critical debates in art and design working with students and staff from across the art and design postgraduate community.

In an ever evolving city such as London, we ask students to embark upon a journey of exploration that identifies in-between spaces, questions assumptions, discovers ‘thisness’, and challenges how they see the world. Each student is asked to detect, collect ideas, reflect and propose new interventions that question the interiors we inhabit. Students look at how the interior responds to the continual behavioural flux of the city and celebrate how it informs new, innovative thought by employing new methods of design communication through the variety of media tools appropriate to industry.

What you will gain?

Each student will have the opportunity to learn new research methods, design development mechanisms via CAD and physical 3D modelling and design communication skills via the production of 3 books. You will gain the necessary knowledge and experience to work within the interior architecture and design industry at a professional level.

You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Optional modules are not offered on every course. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.

How is the MA Interiors (Architecture and Design) taught?

This course is designed to put you at the centre of your learning by using a range of teaching approaches that take into account your individual interests, abilities and ambitions in interior architecture and design. The course is primarily workshop and tutorial based.

As part of your learning, you’ll be required to actively participate in activities and engage with your fellow students, both individually and collaboratively, working and learning as part of a small group at times. At the start of the year you will be asked to perform a pitch presentation outlining the area of research for your final project.

Lectures will facilitate discussion, support in key material or approaches, explore questions, concepts and theories, and introduce case study materials. In seminars, some of which are student-led, you will explore ideas through discussion and presentation. In group and individual tutorials you will receive feedback from tutors on work in progress and specific assignments.

Assessment

Your skills, knowledge and understanding will be entirely assessed by coursework including practical projects, oral presentations and supporting written work. There are no exams.

Formative feedback is provided during each module assignment, together with summative feedback at the end of each module.

The criteria for the final project are:

• Critical awareness of contemporary and current knowledge, practice and contexts within your chosen subject area
• In-depth understanding of how research activity has informed and framed your design decision-making
• Critical and reflective evaluation of the outcomes from your research and design activity
• Expertise in a range of technical, communication and professional skills appropriate to your chosen subject
• The development of a personal practice through the application of knowledge acquired through your research
• Advanced level work that articulates critical analysis, creative problem solving and reflective practice.

How can the MA Interiors (Architecture and Design) support your career?

This course will prepare you for a diverse range of careers foremost within the interior design, architecture and wider design industry, but also within other creative and cultural industries. These may include product, furniture, exhibition design, spatial design and more. You may also decide to pursue careers in further research and teaching. We encourage students to work in the industry and support links with professional industry during and after graduating.

Our graduates are now working as:

• Interior designers
• Architects
• Teachers
• Product Designers
• Researchers
• Writers