Interior Design

This programme is subject to validation

The MA Interior Design programme is located in the School of Architecture. Work is undertaken through design studios, known as platforms and is supported with lectures, seminars and workshops. Talks by researchers, academics and practitioners from related disciplines – set design, architecture, branding, installation art - constitute the 'inside/out' lecture series. These are offered in the unique RCA context of interdisciplinary, studio and workshop-oriented, speculative advanced study. There are often opportunities for projects in conjunction with appropriate external partners and practice mentorship is offered throughout the provision.

The programme is delivered by leading academics, well known practicing designers, architects and theorists, all of whom are internationally renowned and innovators in their fields. Graduates exemplify responsive and intellectually sophisticated designers. They exit the programme replete with practices and processes that will enable them to undertake further research, education and enter interior or other design professions.

This programme is subject to validation

The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.

Term 1

You'll take an initial Primer unit, which will engage you in the exploration and synthesis of the principles and methods of critical ideas in interior space. It introduces you to ideas and the processes that will enable participants to synthesise thinking and research in the design of interior spaces. The work in this unit will be based on a focused exploration that affords the participant the possibilities to challenge their thinking through research, design, exploration in order to generate new meanings for buildings, objects, spaces and the elements within them.

Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in the College-wide unit. This unit aims to support students to meet the challenges of a complex, uncertain and changing world by bringing them together to work collaboratively on a series of themed projects informed by expertise within and beyond the College. These projects will challenge you to use your intellect and imagination to address key cultural, social, environmental and economic challenges. In doing so, you will develop and reflect on the abilities required to translate knowledge into action, and help demonstrate the contribution that the creative arts can make to our understanding and experience of the world.

You'll also take an Elective unit.

Term 2

The Platforms unit engages you in the origination and development of your own project in relation to the thematic concerns of the programme platforms. Each platform in this unit is design to emphasise a particular way of thinking or aspect of the design of the interior.

Platform themes are the provocations or generators of ideas that students utilise in the development of their own research and projects. It is anticipated that you will use the platforms interests to assist in the determination of your own practice interests and ultimately your professional identities.

To note: In order to retain an agility and capacity to maintain currency and agency through being able to respond to emergent issues, the number and themes of platforms will always adapt and change. Recurring themes, such as Reuse, Detail, Display, are based on fundamental issues of the interior and are supplemented with more speculative themes such as Matter, Urbanism, Behaviours, Futures and the Non-terior.

In term 2 all School of Architecture students will participate in the Media Studies, School-wide unit. The unit aims to increase students’ critical engagement with media and space. Through this unit you will be supported to increase your cross-disciplinary communication and you will be challenged to expand your media practice beyond architecture’s reliance on media as purely representation.

Term 3

The purpose of the Independent Research Project (IRP) is to enable you to apply the intellectual, technical and professional skills that you have developed throughout the programme to a challenging self-set brief. The project will normally be advanced from the work previously undertaken in the platforms.

Working within the thematic concerns of the platforms, each student is expected to have agreed a research and project proposal, a brief, with their tutor that identifies the parameters of their project, including its aims, rationale, approaches and methodologies and possible resource implications.

This majority of this unit will involve independent study in the platform system. This unit engages the student in the development and realisation of their IRP. The provocations provided by the platforms are expected to be utilised in order to assist in the determination of the students own practice interests and ultimately their professional ambitions and responsibilities and identities as a practising designer.

This series of talks feature international architects, designers, curators and writers who will discuss their own practice and dissect the role of interior design.

Inside/Out Archive

22 February: Antonino Cardillo
11 December 2018: Tyen Masten
27 November 2018: Steve Jensen
20 November 2018: Professor Graeme Brooker

21 November 2017: Melhem Sfeir
6 February 2018: Dorothée Meilichzon
13 February 2018: Hikaru Nissanke
20 February 2018: Charles Kaisin
27 February 2018: Max Kahlen
6 March 2018: Jenny Jones
13 March 2018: Tom Dixon

4 February 2015: Ben Kelly
21 January 2015: Christophe Egret
28 January 2015: Alannah Weston
17 December 2014: Deyan Sudjic OBE
10 December 2014: Roberto Feo
3 December 2014: Matali Crasset
19 November 2014: Andrew Stevens

20 March 2014: Dinah Casson
30 January 2014: Mark Dytham MBE
23 January 2014: Marcus Fairs
28 November 2013: Ben van Berkel
21 November 2013: Jamie Fobert
7 November 2013: William Russell
16 October 2013: Annabelle Selldorf

9 May 2013: Penny Sparke
28 February 2013: Richard Rogers
21 February 2013: Edward Jones CBE 
7 February 2013: Petra Blaisse
29 November 2012: Jason Bruges 
8 November 2012: Ab Rogers