Interior Design MA

This research-led Interior Design MA addresses the needs of graduates from interior design and related discipline backgrounds, or those who wish to collaborate with professionals in the field. Our Interior Design MA is one of several postgraduate design courses that co-exist at the Cass, offering rich opportunities for the collaborative multidisciplinary approach that is a feature of the current and future design sector and a requirement for success in the field. The overall theme and content of the course is intended to encourage independent design thinking in the field of the interior. In this respect, the curriculum focuses in an advanced and systematic way on aspects of the profession and practice. Design and research for design occupies a large proportion of the course and the process of design is rehearsed through the vehicle of project work. There is an emphasis upon putting you in a real, complex and ambiguous context for project work, with many more parameters that cover social, political and economic contexts as well as the physical context. The course addresses the needs of graduates from interior, spatial and architectural backgrounds where traditional roles are increasingly blurred and design skills may be needed in a variety of guises. It emphasises generic and transferable skills in design of the built environment, and locates the subject in this broader context to encourage you to seek and create opportunities for the practice of their discipline. You'll want to imbue your work with meaning, to use it to communicate, to engage emotions and inspire response. Interiors are designed to be attractive and desirable in the marketplace and relevant to consumers, meaning you'll need an exhaustive overview of current and forthcoming furniture products in order to be competitive. Design and research occupy a large proportion of the course; the research and development process of design is rehearsed through your project work. In parallel with theoretical research, you'll generate, communicate and evaluate all kinds of innovative ideas and concepts for furniture. You'll discover that design research will reveal the widest range of proposals for testing, how best to inform the producer of what you have in mind and how best to evaluate concepts. You'll be assessed through portfolios of written, research, visual and physical project work, all directly related to the requirements of practice in the field. The MA is concluded with a major project in which you'll select an area of study, formulate your own argument or theoretical position and produce an independent body of work. Typical career opportunities include work as design consultants, design directors in interior design or architectural practitioner as spatial designers.

Students will be required to have: a first class or strong upper second class degree, or equivalent, in a related subject. Students will also be expected to present a portfolio and provide a statement demonstrating their ambition for the subject area and for studying at postgraduate level. Employment or consultancy within the field can also be considered alongside the portfolio and statement.