Interior Architecture BA(Hons)

Why study with us?

• You’ll study in Brighton, a coastal city renowned for its culture of creativity. Through community engagement, you’ll have the chance to use your acquired expertise to enhance and transform local projects.

• Through community engagement, you'll have the chance to use your acquired expertise to work on live projects such as set designs, exhibition installations and competitions. These projects have included TEDx Brighton, EcoBuild in London and a garden project with the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership.

• You’ll participate in a vibrant studio culture, sharing ideas, creativity and techniques and replicating the working environment of the professional design world.

• You’ll learn how to formally present your work to external consultants, tutors and your peers.

• Each year there is an optional field trip that expands your architectural and spatial design knowledge base.

• We employ a range of assessment methods, including public reviews, peer reviews, portfolio submissions, reports and essay submissions to give you the critical feedback you need to excel.

• Each year six students help to run the Brighton Architecture and Interiors Student Society, which organises lectures, events and exhibitions.

• Throughout the course, you will be building a portfolio to help you stand out from the crowd.

All Interior Architecture BA(Hons) students participate in the Context Workshop Week - a five-day project-based learning activity. The aim is to introduce specific skills, techniques and processes that will inform your design practice and thinking.

Year 1

In year 1, you will be introduced to the discipline of interior architecture within a wide historical and cultural context, establishing your skills, specialist knowledge and practices.

Modules

• Design 1: An Introduction to Context

  This module will introduce you to the Interior Architecture course, with the broader aim of enabling you to understand the physical context of existing structures and situations and how to design appropriately for them. In doing this you will develop core representational skills in order to communicate your ideas effectively.

  In this module you will learn how small-scale design/spatial interventions have the power to transform existing contexts. You will be introduced to a range of creative design, production and representation techniques through a range of workshops.

• Design 2: An Introduction to Narrative

  This module explores the narrative of existing buildings and introduces the range and use of narrative tools for exploring inhabitation, complexity of programme and contextual engagement.

  This module introduces social, historical, political and fictional elements into the design and presentation processes as a method for developing design briefs, site responses and speculative design propositions.

• Interiors: Histories and Theories 1 - an Introduction

  This module provides an overview of major themes that are relevant to understanding the context of interior architecture. Specific case study lectures will build into a general survey of the historical and cultural dimensions of interior architecture and related disciplines that inform the built environment in general.

• Culture 1: Critical Voices

  This module introduces you to the contested multiple critical voices of the discipline of interior architecture. It focuses on personal development, communication skills and techniques whilst developing a critical voice by understanding and reflecting on diverse approaches that inform interior architecture.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through our applicant portal.

Students assembling their bench design for a public garden in Brighton, as part of a collaborative project with the council and the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership.

Year 2

In year 2 you will broaden and deepen your awareness of the field. This is a year for creative experimentation and the exploration of new territories.

Modules

• Design 3: Territory and Catalyst
• Design 4: Experience and Systems
• Culture 2: Identities
• Interior Histories and Theories 2

Option modules*

• Home: Making and Unmaking   
• Thinking Through Drawing

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

In year 3 you will have opportunities to apply your skills and spatial design awareness. The intention throughout this year is to consolidate your knowledge, enable you to develop an independent creative voice, and prepare you for entry into professional practice or enable you to engage in further research. Each year, graduating students exhibit their work in the arts and humanities graduate show.

Modules

• Design 5: Territory and Catalyst
• Design 6: Experience and Systems
• Culture 3: Future Practice
• Interior Histories and Theories 3: Dissertation

Student view

Amelia Lewis

"Reflecting on my time at Brighton and the course, I am so grateful for the various skills we learned and the opportunities we were given. I now realise how transferrable and vital everything we learned truly is to any industry! The conceptual nature of the course has broadened my way of thinking and helped significantly with the way I approach a design task. The majority of my colleagues studied event management at university, but have commented on how much they value and respect my design-based CV and background.”

Staff profiles 

Gemma Barton Course leader

Gemma Barton is an academic with a varied and active flair for writing, curating and designing. She has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students for almost a decade in architecture, interior architecture, urban design and design thinking.

Find out more about Gem's teaching and research interests.

Other staff who teach on the course include: Michael Spooner, Terry Meade, and Glenn Longdon-Thurgood.

International requirements

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Portfolio advice 

Once we receive your UCAS application, we invite you to submit a digital web portfolio in support of this. We understand that at this stage you will still be undertaking key pieces of work for your studies, and we would very much like to see this work in progress. Regardless of completion, we are keen to see how you generate and work with ideas. Once we have received your portfolio, if we are able to accept your application, we will offer you an opportunity to come and meet us in Brighton, discuss your work and perhaps participate in a short design-based taster session.

What should be in my work-in-progress portfolio?
Your portfolio should include up to 20 images of your work (JPEGs or PDFs). These should include preparatory drawings and studies as well as any finished pieces you may have from previous projects/personal work. Please include the type of work you are most actively interested in pursuing. We do not necessarily expect to see architectural work, we are looking for a variety of work in different media showing your ability to experiment and utilise different techniques. Please include a good proportion of analogue (non-computer) generated work. As you will not be present in person to explain the ideas behind the work, you may wish to add a brief statement that supports the images and tells us more about your interests and ambitions.

How do I send my work-in-progress portfolio?
We recommend using an online site such as Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Carbonmade, or Flickr to showcase your work as these sites can host visual imagery and accompanying text. When digitising analogue works, please be sure to take care with the photography or scanning process, make sure the digital copy is a good quality representation of the original.

Make sure that the portfolio is publicly viewable and does not require a log in or account to view. Please avoid Dropbox or other sites that are not suited for hosting visual portfolios.

Please do not send pdfs or PowerPoint files directly to us as these are normally too large and likely to bounce and delay your application review.

Course fees

Perkins+Will Thesis Prize for Architecture

The £250 Perkins+Will Thesis Prize for Architecture is open to final-year students of the Interior Architecture BA(Hons) and the Interior Design MA. It rewards work that exhibits strong design principles and that shows concern for sustainability, social responsibility, diversity, wellness and innovation.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Local area

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Moulsecoomb campus map