Craft & Material Practices

Explore contemporary craft through the evolving relationship between thinking and making. Develop your practice across materials and processes, with access to specialist workshops and digital prototyping in Fab Lab South West, plus live briefs, pitching and competitions.

With almost 150,000 people employed in the UK’s craft industry, skilled craftspeople are putting the country on the map for original, forward-thinking contemporary design. The relationship between thinking and making is constantly evolving, with experimentation and innovation driving a new wave of craftspeople to explore original directions.

On BA (Hons) Craft & Material Practices at Arts University Plymouth, you’ll often explore methods in which we can live harmoniously within natural and fabricated environments while supporting a healthy ecosystem, developing your practice through materials, processes and making.

At a glance

• Degree: BA (Hons) Craft & Material Practices

• UCAS codes: 3-year degree 67T2 / 4-year extended degree 69K5

• Typical UCAS points: 104–120

Facilities, studios and resources

Our spacious Materials Lab includes specialist facilities for ceramics, glass, metal and wood, encouraging you to explore traditional making. It is complemented by the rapid digital prototyping facilities within Fab Lab South West, giving you the opportunity to reinvent craft for the 21st century.

However, learning isn’t limited to our studios and workshops. You will meet some of the UK’s most inventive and entrepreneurial contemporary makers and thinkers through gallery visits, demonstrations and presentations.

What you’ll learn and how you’ll study

On this course you will have the opportunity to explore a wide range of techniques and processes across materials and making:

• Ceramics: throwing, slip casting, slab building, coiling, glazing and raku firing

• Glass: hot glassmaking, kiln-formed glass, coldworking and lampworking

• Metals: casting, welding and grinding

• Woodworking: woodturning, joinery and CNC routing (if you choose to specialise)

• Fab Lab South West: laser cutting, CNC milling and 3D printing

Enterprise, entrepreneurship and live experience

As a student, you will learn about enterprise and entrepreneurship, and how to price, display and promote work for a range of different markets. This includes large-scale site-specific work, individual exhibition pieces and domestic products, all based on knowledge of your customers and the experience gained by working on live briefs, pitching to clients and entering competitions.

Why choose this course?

• Explore an expansive range of material practices, including glassblowing and kiln-formed glass, ceramics, large and small scale metals, woodworking, concrete, plastics and textiles, in our industry-standard workshops.

• Engage with live briefs and real clients: students have worked with Tate Exchange, The Box, MAKE Southwest, Mount Edgcumbe Estate, Eden Project and New Designers among others.

• Become part of the international maker community by participating in our renowned, biennial Making Futures™ conference, a research platform exploring contemporary craft and maker movements as ‘change agents’ in 21st-century society.

Careers and future opportunities

Career opportunities include: Designer/Makers, Ceramicists, Glass Artists, Wearables Designers, Sculptors, Architectural Surface Designers, Mixed Media Artists, Fine Artists, Gallery and Museum Professionals, Teachers, Technicians, Material Restoration Technicians and Conservators, and Prop Designers.

Course Modules

Arts University Plymouth offers a year long sandwich year option. Framed within the institution’s innovative Common Unit Framework, the sandwich year experience is offered as a unit that contributes to your BA (Hons) Degree.
The sandwich year can take the form of an internship or work placement, and can take place in the UK or abroad. It is intended to give you the possibility of gaining experience in art and design practice in a ‘real life’ industry setting, before you return to complete the final year of your degree. You will be able to build your CV and, if you choose to take on your sandwich year outside of the UK, enhance your experience of international creative practice.
Sandwich year placements will be selected by each student who wishes to take one, assisted by Course staff within AUP. Opportunities may also come through corporate approaches to AUP or through links built by your course tutors. Each placement opportunity will be reviewed by the University before being approved to ensure its suitability to be part of your course. During the Sandwich Year you remain enrolled at AUP with access to IT and your email accounts, online library and learning support.
Once approved, the sandwich year will count towards your overall degree and completion of it will be acknowledged on your degree certificate.