Why Study This Course?
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 our School of Art, Architecture and Design, 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.
More About This Course
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.
Modules and projects are delivered within a design studio unit that sets a theme for your design work over the academic year, which creates a collaborative working model. The studio runs projects in a range of research interests, sites, building types, cultural and theoretical contexts. The School’s Interiors cluster shares a commitment to contemporary design and its global and local contexts, a passion for building, and desire to test the premises of the interior, theoretically as well as practically.
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.
The School of Art, Architecture and Design is a community that shares a commitment to contemporary design and its global and local contexts, a passion for design in all its forms, and desire to test the premises of the field, theoretically as well as practically. The School aspires to effect real, meaningful and beneficial change through our design work and MA Interior Design is a part of that vision.
Alternative Core Module Information
The School maintains a portfolio of alternative core MA (level 7) 20 credit modules, two of which will be core to this course in any particular year. Prior to the start of the course each September, the course team will decide which of the alternative core modules should be the core 20 credit modules for the following academic cycle. This decision is based on the project opportunities arising and the balance of students across the portfolio of MA design courses. Please note, students themselves do not choose which of the alternative core modules to take themselves. See the modular structure section below for more details.
Accreditation Of Prior Learning
Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course at London Met.
Modular Structure
The modules listed below are for the academic year 2022/23 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.
Year 1 Modules Include:
Design Project Development (core, 40 credits)
Design Research for Practice (core, 40 credits)
Project as Professional Practice: Interior Design (core, 60 credits)
Democratising Luxury (alternative core, 20 credits)
Design for Change (alternative core, 20 credits)
Interior Contexts (alternative core, 20 credits)
Material Thought (alternative core, 20 credits)
Where This Course Can Take You
Recent studies show that globally, the growth of creative and cultural industries is more than twice the rate of the world economy. The creative industry in the UK is huge and about half of all those involved in the design sector work in London. London supports one of the highest concentrations of designers and design related businesses in the world and our unique location offers many opportunities for students and professionals to showcase cutting-edge design.
Typical career opportunities include work as design consultants, design directors in interior design or architectural practitioner as spatial designers.
Alumni work internationally for all sectors of design, such as branding, retail design, exhibition design, residential design, digital design and environmental design. Some graduates have gone on to work at Norman Foster and Partners, Bill Dunster Architects, Orbit Architects, Orange and United Designers. Career paths in the cultural industries, design journalism, education and marketing are also open on completion of the course.
