Glass Arts University Plymouth

Overview

Steeped in a rich and multi-cultural history of material discovery and the evolution of methodologies of practice over centuries, this course provides you with the opportunity to focus on learning the vast bodies of knowledge and techniques for making glass. As a substance that is used in nearly every sector of life, including architecture, product design, digital devices and screens, scientific lenses, automotive design, interior design, solar energy, and fibre optics, you will be taught the fundamental properties and behaviours of glass and how it came to be developed as a material of significant utility and revered for unparalleled beauty. Learning its history and many applications will open up your individual pathway of practice-led research into how glass might be reimagined or innovatively applied in a contemporary context.

As a student of the course you will have access to our newly installed electric furnace for hot glass—one of only a small number of electrically-powered furnaces in the UK—as well as to adjacent hot glass glory-holes, kilns and a glass forming workshop that includes a suite of machines for grinding, shaping and polishing your poured or blown glass forms. The hot glass studio includes three blowing benches, where you will explore the traditional method of working with molten transparent and coloured glass, shaping it by blowing and hot forming it with tools.

Your study will include your ability to focus on a wide range of methods from traditional glass blowing, stained glass, and kiln forming, to the exploration of more contemporary ideas for glass through the use of 3D moulds and waterjet cutting glass patterns informed by digital modelling and 3D scanning technologies. Adjacent to our FabLab, you can work seamlessly between ancient techniques and the latest digital fabrication technologies, offering you unparalleled opportunity to unite time-honoured glass processes with innovative methods for creating with glass at object or architectural scale, as well as for combining glass with other materials.