Overview
Develop your creative vision and get a fresh perspective on design on our full-time Interior Design degree at Cambridge School of Art. Choose to study abroad for one semester in the Netherlands, go on field trips and get ongoing support to find work placements. Discover the relationships between design, experience and narrative to become a unique interior designer with a distinctive creative voice.
- Our Design & Crafts courses ranked 8th in the UK for ‚Satisfied with Course’ and 3rd for ‚Satisfied with Teaching’ in the The Guardian University Guide 2020
- Benefit from small working groups with a high staff-to-student ratio
- Become a student member of the British Interior Institute of Design, the Society for British International Design and Interior Educators
- See your designs become reality in live projects for local organisations such as Cambridge University Press
- Draw on the shared language of a diverse specialist team, including spatial and architectural design, object design, film, theatre and lighting design
- Build your teamwork skills alongside students from other year groups and courses
- Receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience.
- Experience and get inspired by different types of interior space on field trips to locations like Amsterdam.
- Study abroad for one semester in the Netherlands, and apply for funding to help cover the cost
Exciting and intriguing spaces offer experiences that make us want to return again and again. On our BA (Hons) Interior Design you will learn to create effective design proposals, while considering how to develop spaces that connect stories with people.
Design can reveal a lot about the users in the space or community they inhabit. You will explore how to embed significant stories into your designs, stories that will help others to develop social connections and make your designed spaces important to the wider community.
For example, you might consider how someone behaves in a space, what inspires their social interactions, then develop your design proposal around the needs for this activity, such as a communal kitchen where neighbours can meet each other and learn to cook locally grown food. Here we ask, ‘What connects someone to their place?’
Throughout the course, you’ll be encouraged to propose design questions – not just solutions, allowing you to better understand a space before you redesign it. Such questions might include: how can public spaces cater for multiple activities and users?; how much space do we need to live in?; how can we respond to changes on the high street by offering an alternate experience?; or how do major brands reinvent themselves to respond to new markets?
We think your ideas, design skills and team work are important. You’ll develop these by working together in small teams at different stages of your degree, sometimes alongside students from other year groups or other art courses, as well as engaging in a consistent conversation with your tutors throughout all three years of the course.
Our small studio groups ensure there are at least two tutors for every 20 students. Your tutors will get to know you and your work very well, helping you to become a resilient and creative designer ready to work in industry.
In all of your work, you’ll be able to draw on the shared languages of our specialist team, including spatial and architectural design, object design, film, theatre, and lighting design. This varied combination of ideas makes our graduates unique.
You’ll also have opportunities to take part in live projects set by industry as well as work placements. In a recent live project, our second year students designed and built the setting for our third years’ degree show exhibition in Cambridge and London.
Joining our course will also make you a student member of the British Interior Institute of Design (BIID), the Society of British and International Design (SBID)and Interior Educators (IE), meaning you’ll have access to many different exhibitions, competitions, resources and activities involving practitioners and other design students. We’ll also help you to foster professional relationships through Design Bench, a series of industry networking meetings.
Careers
Our BA (Hons) Interior Design will prepare you to work with architects or in spatial design practices on residential, commercial, hospitality, health, lighting, entertainment or furniture design projects. You might decide to set up your own interior design practice after you graduate, as Bogdan Burcui did with Two B Design.
The creative skills you develop will also help you find a career in the visual arts, film, television, event and theatre design, or exhibition and museum design, while the management skills will be useful for project management roles on creative projects.
Work placements
We work with employers to make sure you graduate with the knowledge, skills and abilities they need. They help us review what we teach and how we teach it – and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.
Our past students have taken up placements or other work experience with organisations such as Alium Design, Robert Mathew Johnson Marshall(architects), Haley Sharpe Design Ltd (global designers), Julia Johnson (interior designer), Monteith Scott (designers), Dalziel & Pow, Penny Banks, Saunders Boston Architects, Arkitektones, Mineheart, and Laura Ashley. Many of these connections have led to employment.
Find out more about our placements and work experience, or the faculty’s employability support.
Study trips, collaborations, exhibitions and awards
You’ll have opportunities to visit exhibitions and events in London and other European cities, as well as collaborate in projects with design courses in Breda (Netherlands) and Sydney (Australia). To gain more exposure to the world of design, you can show your work in exhibitions such as Free Range, London, Cambridge Festival of Ideas and also on our interior design Instagram page, which is followed by many professionals.
Our past students have won significant prizes, allowing them to set up their own businesses and develop prototypes, such as Lucy Tushingham’s Major Project proposal, ‚Flat Pack House’.
Modules & Assessment
Year one, core modules
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Interior Design Studio 1
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Spatial Drawing
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Interior Design Studio 2
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Digital Media 1
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Building Technology in Interior Design
Year one, optional modules
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Design Contextual Studies
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English for Study 1 & 2
Year two, core modules
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Interior Design Studio 3
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Digital Media 2
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Debates and Practices
Year two, optional modules
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Identities
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Design for the Screen
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Installation Practice
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Business for the Creative Arts
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The Lit Environment
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Site-specific Work
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Interior Design Studio 4
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Short Fiction Film
Year three, core modules
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Interior Design Studio 5
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Major Project
Year three, optional modules
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Research Project
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Research Assignment
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Working in the Creative Industries
Assessment
For a full breakdown of module options and credits, please view the module structure (pdf).
Our studio projects will allow you to focus on your creative development, while you’ll also demonstrate your process and creative decisions through a combination of portfolio, written and practical studio work.
Where you’ll study
Your department and faculty
At Cambridge School of Art, we combine the traditions of our past with the possibilities afforded by the latest technologies.
Using our expertise and connections in Cambridge and beyond, we nurture creativity through experimentation and risk-taking to empower the makers and creators of the future.
Our academics excel at both practice and theory, making a real impact in their chosen fields, whether they are curating exhibitions, designing book covers or photographing communities in Africa. They are also regularly published in catalogues, books, journals and conference papers, their research classed as being of ‘international standing’, with some elements ‘world-leading’, in the most recent Research Excellence Framework.
