Interior Architecture and Design University of Portsmouth

Overview

You’ll study in an interdisciplinary environment with our other architecture courses as you learn to understand your strengths and disciplinary skills in the wider design environment. You'll be encouraged to engage with interior spaces through creative practice, experimentation, material engagement, and tangible and intangible matters, and learn to use advanced technologies and tools such as 3D printers and augmented and virtual reality in our Centre for Creative and Immersive Extended Reality (CCIXR), the UK’s first integrated facility to support innovation in virtual, augmented and extended realities. 

On this Interior Architecture and Design course from University of Portsmouth you'll explore the everyday lives of communities and their role in the environment, culture, economy, the political, and the aesthetic. You'll discover practices of care, and consider carefulness and communication as you engage with climate change by looking at city scale infrastructures among other things. You'll explore everyday detail and the relationship between our lived experience and the structures that impact how we live. You'll also explore strategies for reusing of buildings and work with local communities in socially engaged projects.

During the degree you’ll choose and develop your MA thesis by using a personal research project and building a personal manifesto.  You’ll explore your individual design practice and career trajectory in a self-reflective manifesto, which you’ll develop using an online blog and by working with peers. 

The course also supports you to engage with analogue methods of working that focus on the body, human and non-human, at the centre of your practice.  You're encouraged to practice using both digital and analogue methods of working.  

You’ll learn to view your work in different social and cultural contexts and have opportunities to work with others, including communities, and explore your responsibilities relating to climate change and action, ready to graduate with all the tools you need for a career in interior architecture and interior design and associated creative industries.

Course highlights

• Build your professional network by meeting practising designers and architects, industry-experienced lecturers, and your peers 
• Work with groups including Portsea community and St Luke’s Church 
• Benefit from the School of Architecture’s strong links with regional and national architectural and design practices 
• Work at places such as Wymering Manor to engage with adaptive reuse strategies and community engagement
• Hear from industry experts including lecturers and guest speakers 
• Exhibit at shows including our interim show, end of year show and the Interior Educators Exhibition 
• Have the opportunity to go on visits to European cities, like Venice, or to join in with school visits taking place within the School of Architecture

Careers and opportunities

During this course you’ll guide and develop your own studies, reflect on your design practice to date, and explore where you would like to go in the future and how you would like to work. You’ll build your portfolio by taking part in competitions and working with others in the School of Architecture.

By engaging with live projects and networking with practicing designers/architects, you’ll build your professional experience and network. You’ll learn to work collaboratively, engage in interdisciplinary projects, and to build your team working skills. You’ll develop your critical thinking and perspective, which gives you an edge over others with undergraduate portfolios. 

You’ll take part in an interim show in June, and the School of Architecture end of year show, where you’ll exhibit your work and network with prospective employers. You may also exhibit at the Interior Educators Exhibition in July. Previous students have had work exhibited at the Oxo Tower, London.

Graduates of this course have gone onto work in areas such as:

• design practice

• architectural practice

• event management

• exhibition design

• arts practice

• education