Interior Architecture and Design

COURSE CONTENT

Level 4 (first year)

Understanding the interior

Level 4 aims to generate a fundamental understanding of space: its analysis, theoretical manipulation, habitation, technological construction and materiality and scale.

The units at Level 4, and throughout your three years, are intended to show how the course looks at both interior architecture (generally considered to be the remodelling of existing buildings and the development of attitudes towards those spaces and structures) and interior design (the creation of a range of interior environments that articulate identity and atmosphere through the manipulation of spatial volume, placement of specific elements and the treatment of surfaces).

Studies at this level may include, but not be limited to:

• Colour
• Scale
• Problem solving
• Communication of ideas through differing media
• Private and public and the effect on the design of spaces
• Analysing lifestyle and habitation: thinking of spaces as a designer, how people move and inhabit space, utilise space
• The construction of space and its materiality
• The intimate – the personal
• Spatial relationships
• Historical/contextual basis of design.

Level 5 (second year)

Up-thinking the interior

Level 5 aims to consolidate and refine the skills delivered at Level 4 and encourage you to develop your own methods of realisation and visualisation. Your second year has been designed to enhance your development both creatively and professionally.

Technical knowledge (construction/light/sound/materiality) will also be further developed with design units being used to demonstrate how your knowledge and critical understanding of the well-established principles of interior architecture and design have developed.

Technological developments and developments in the nature of interior practice will be explored such as the communication of semiotics, atmosphere and identity, ideas of brand and image, interactivity, the real and the virtual.

In Level 5, design will progress from the concentration on the personal and intimate at Level 4 to ideas of community – and the deeper understanding of scale, complexity and hierarchy in space that this will necessitate. You’ll explore concepts such as gender, ritual, workplace and domesticity, with reference to typologies such as spaces of power, spaces of commerce and spaces of faith.

In the summer term, you can choose between an extended work placement (of 10 weeks) or a comprehensive, research-intensive, design project. Both of these units are worth 40 credits.

Current level 5 students are on placement. Please take a look at where our students are currently on placement by clicking on the below hyperlinks. You can also view our student’s placements blogs by clicking on their names:

• Rebecca is at Michael Grubb Studio, Poole.
• Patricia is at Tripoli Arkitektar, Reykajavik, Iceland.
• Joe is at Michael Grubb Studio, Bournemouth.
• Madeleine is at Anderson Orr Architects, Oxford.
• Imi is in Forme UK, London.
• Khanung is at SC&A Design & Construction, Hong Kong.
• Tash is at Design Engine, Winchester.
• Victoria is at Tekne, Poole.
• Sim is at Stiff & Trevillion Architects, London.
• Lucy is at Space & Solutions, New Milton.
• Charlotte is at Conran & Partners, London.
• Shona is at WN Interiors, Poole.
• Lara is at Rebecca Hughes Interiors, Islington, London.
• Simone is at Forge Design Studio Ltd, Salisbury.
• Deira is at Cloud Architektai, Vilnius, Lithuania.
• Eleonore is at KTM Design, Bournemouth.
• Natalia is at Craftstudio, Monaghan, Ireland.

You will also be asked, through discussions with your unit tutor, to determine the broad area for research to be explored in the dissertation and the design project which will occur in the first unit of the autumn term of Level 6, your third year.

Level 6 (third year)

Redefining the interior

Your final year is your opportunity to bring all of your learning, skills and knowledge together in the production of a package of professionally orientated, creative work that will examine and emphasise your research theme.

One of the fundamental strengths of the course is that it does not attempt to define the interior for you, rather it encourages you, over three years, to challenge, theorise, conceptualise, realise and visualise your notion of the “interior” in contemporary society: in other words we encourage you, in your final year, to look at what the interior can be.

Units at Level 6 will look to consolidate this approach through the work that has been undertaken at Levels 4 and 5. In addition, the course will encourage you to build on your Level 5 experience to contextualise your work in a professional studio environment that emphasises practice, law and the ethical and ecological roles and responsibilities of you as a designer.

At the end of the year you will have produced a comprehensive body of written and design work that will demonstrate to both specialist and non-specialist audiences your practical and thinking skills and intellectual and critical engagement in the complex design of interior spaces.

Having undertaken this work in a professional setting, you will evidence your readiness for the move to either practice or postgraduate study and you will be proud of what you have achieved.

COURSE STRUCTURE

All students are registered for the award of BA (Hons); however, exit awards are available if you leave the course early, having successfully completed one or two levels. If you successfully complete a level of the course, you will automatically be entitled to progress to the next level.

For the award of a Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 120 credits at Level 4. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the first year of your course.

For the award of a Diploma of Higher Education (DipHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 240 credits of which a minimum of 120 must be at Level 5. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the second year of your course.

For the award of a BA (Hons) you must have achieved a minimum of 360 credits of which a minimum of 240 must be at Level 5 or above, of which a minimum of 120 credits must be at Level 6. This qualification will be awarded upon successful completion of your course.

A BA without Honours may be awarded if you have achieved 300 credits, at least 180 of which are at Level 5 or above, and at least 60 of which are at Level 6.