Design Studio Practice - BA (Hons)

Successful 3D design outcomes are reliant on sound 3D design principles. These design principles inform and create opportunities for you to apply your creativity to the conception, development and eventual realisation of effective 3D design solutions.

This module introduces and develops a range of knowledge, skills and approaches in the research, sketching and communication of information and ideas for 3D disciplines and artefacts in visual form.

The module offers a sequence of three intensive programmes or ‘mini-blocks’, tailored to the interests of specific groups of students. The module engages the student in thinking about their subject area, how it is defined and practiced, the richness of its resources, and how it opens up questions of context. In particular the module investigates how context might be framed, for example culturally, historically, economically, socially, theoretically or through practice. Students are encouraged to see connections and reflect on what they see in ways that build skills of communication and help articulate ideas. The module also helps the student, through learning how to identify, access and use knowledge profitably, to become knowledgeable about their subject area, its extent, its language and conventions, its history and practice.

Good design and high-quality artefacts are informed by knowledge of the potential and limitations of relevant technologies and techniques, materials and process. The focus of this module is on the development of understanding and abilities in a range of key practical skills and an understanding of material and process through experience, experimentation and direct observation.

As humans, we live in a continuous and ongoing relationship with the made world, where the former and the latter each inform the other. This module aims to investigate through design and physical realiation, how an understanding of human needs and desires, physical, psychological, sociological and economic, and of people as individuals and in society, can aid successful design.

The module offers a sequence of three intensive programmes or ‘mini-blocks’ tailored to the interests of specific groups of students. It provides a range of studies that address the character and conditions of cultural production including how they operate in practice. The module helps to prepare the student for their final-year dissertation and their future role as professionals and practitioners. The student encounters different perspectives on their subject area and undertakes different forms of coursework aimed at helping inform their choice of dissertation topic and approach.

Design resolution ensures a confident and complex realisation of your design concepts. Materiality (form, colour, surface and texture) affects meaning and value in all design. This module requires your critical attention to subtle and implicit design details, expressed through materials, aesthetics and construction, considering how material and production selection, manipulation and application inscribes quality and value onto the final resolution of the artefact.

Consumers today, demand products with superior ethical and environmental values and will do so increasingly in the future, as our shared environment becomes more stressed. Corporate ethical and environmental requirements mirror this, often in response to governmental legislation. There is a need for intelligent and sustainable exploitation of finite materials and processes. Professional ethics, social enterprise and entrepreneurial strategies produce creative solutions.

Together with the Major Project Realisation module, this module is intended to prepare 3D Design students for independent practice, entry into the professional workplace, or for higher studies.

The module is framed in terms of a dissertation. The student undertakes an enquiry into a topic of his or her own choice and, based on this enquiry, develops an extended critical study. The module involves individual supervision designed to support the student’s ambitions and confidence in becoming an independent learner, building on techniques and knowledge developed in previous years, and providing scope for initiative and development. The dissertation demonstrates the student’s ability to thoroughly research a topic, use appropriate methods of investigation, and work methodically and productively.

This Major Project module enables BA Design Studio Practice students to prepare for independent practice in the workplace or to progress onto higher studies. In this module, you will carry out the project conceived and developed in the parallel 3D Project Design and Development module (DN6013), fully realising it in appropriate physical form by the end of the module.