During the first year there will be a series of intensive two-to-four week assignments in subjects that are relevant to the taught programme.

In the second year, students will undertake a group project followed by an individual project. Students will be able to select their final project assignment within a framework of one of the major themes – urban systems, health and wellbeing, energy and environment, society and social enterprise, and address this from the standpoint of business-to-business, consumer or public services.

The timing of the projects by term are as follows:

Term 1: Consumer Services group assignment
Term 2: Business-to-business services individual assignment
Term 3: Public Services group assignment
Term 4: Group assignment: choice of consumer/business/public service
Terms 5 and 6: Individual assignment: choice of consumer/business/public service

Students' individual assignment will feature in the RCA Degree Show exploiting video, storyboarding, performance/simulation and related artefact design.

For further details on the curriculum click here or to see suggested reading click here.

Amongst the skills that the course seeks to develop are the ability for you to manage large, long-term projects and to collaborate with others, including other professionals from different design disciplines, as well as those from different professional or sectoral backgrounds. During the autumn and early part of the summer term of the second year, you will be required to undertake a collaborative service design project, culminating in the demonstration of a service prototype including the design of relevant physical artefacts and the environmental context in which the service takes place. This collaborative project can be in the field of public, consumer or business to business services as selected by the student or collaborating group. The projects may be sponsored by the programmes industry or public sector partners who in turn, will provide input to the examiners. The project will be assessed as evidence of your learning from the first four terms of the programme. As a ‘live’ project, your group will need to manage the not only the design and prototyping of the service but demonstrate a potentially feasible business model and deployment strategy.

We are expecting you to be able to demonstrate you personal capability and creativity by producing a major piece of individual work as the climax to your second year. This will be four-month project that will be executed from February through to June and the final examination. You will be expected to present the project proposal and related brief at the end of January of their second year to be agreed with their tutors at that time. This project will enable you to demonstrate the practice of working not only to a ‘brief’, but also demonstrate your capacity to become the author of your own ‘brief. Working with the careful guidance of a tutor, you will be required to establish the parameters and challenges of this project, and its potential contribution in economic, social or environmental terms.