Design (Built Environment) (Taught)

Develop a unique practice using co-design and practice-led research to transform the spaces people inhabit for increased wellbeing, social agency and sense of place, approaching space as a dynamic infrastructure.

MA Design (Built Environment) prepares you to develop a unique practice using methods of co-design and practice-led research to transform the spaces people inhabit for increased wellbeing, social agency and sense of place.

You will learn how to approach space as a dynamic infrastructure.

At a glance

• Award: MA Design (Built Environment)

• Learning emphasis: project-based, place-based, and open-knowledge approaches to design

• Practice focus: co-design and practice-led research

• Professional focus: well-being, circular production and regenerative design

How you’ll learn

Develop a project within a learning environment that emphasises project-based, place-based, and open-knowledge approaches to design.

Multidisciplinary community and expertise

Study as part of a multidisciplinary community of practitioners who have expertise in interior design, CAD modelling, 3D photogrammetry, spatial acoustics, material innovations, and immersive media environments

Professional practice for social and cultural change

Discover ways of working professionally, with a focus on well-being, circular production and regenerative design, to lead social and cultural change.

Why choose this course?

• Develop a project within a learning environment that emphasises project-based, place-based, and open-knowledge approaches to design.

• Study as part of a multidisciplinary community of practitioners with expertise in interior design, CAD modelling, 3D photogrammetry, spatial acoustics, material innovations, and immersive media environments.

• Discover ways of working professionally, with a focus on well-being, circular production and regenerative design, to lead social and cultural change.

Careers and future opportunities

Career opportunities include: Interior Designers, Experience Designers, Production Designers, Materials Specialists, Creative Directors, Design Entrepreneurs, Product Managers and Design Production Managers.

Course Modules

The comprehensive Masters structure, which is shared across our specialist subjects, is a taught degree which enables a focus on creative strategies and processes through three sequential units which support you in investigating, testing and developing your ideas. The core tuition focuses on training, research methodology, critical thinking, design, practice-led research methods and professional and conceptual frameworks. All of our programmes have access to outstanding workshop facilities in the university.

A unique component of our postgraduate curriculum is a programme of Research Intensives which invites all MA students to participate in short format, deep learning sessions in areas of creative expertise led by the university’s research-active staff and external specialists. These Research Intensives enrich subject-specific study with adjacent practices, cultural theories, and creative methodologies that will challenge historical assumptions of your subject and inspire innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches, giving you the opportunity to lead your discipline with original insights.

You will be supported in your MA study by a Subject Tutor who is a specialist in your chosen discipline, to provide a consistent touchstone for the critical development and formal progression of your creative or theoretical work. In addition to your Subject Tutor, you will have ongoing tutorials, critiques, and discipline-specific seminars taught by other members of the postgraduate faculty who lead the curriculum units.

By combining learning units with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, you will be able to achieve depth and specialisation within your subject area, while at the same time develop a critical methodology through techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors.