Core modules
Year One
Our first year modules are designed to introduce you to a broad array of design disciplines. Taking these modules gives you an opportunity to experiment as you gain a broad understanding of design disciplines. This is why we refer to you at this stage of learning as the 'Pluralist Student' - these modules provide the foundation upon which innovation is built.
Explores the diverse theories and practices of designing, the designed world, the impact of design on people, and the challenges and ambitions that motivate designing. You will examine the contextual backdrop to the formation of design as discourse, practice and profession, question the globalisation of design, the similarities and differences between different forms of designing, design professions, and everyday designing. You will develop critical and creative capabilities for responding to the designed world. You will learn from experience and practice, from visiting diverse locations, and encountering innovative designs and designers who have worked on national and international projects.
Read more about the Design in Context moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Explores design practice from holistic and reductionist perspectives, their relationship and critiques, and discovers diverse forms of thinking and making in design. You will explore design as a multi-disciplinary endeavour through considerations of impact on personal practice and methodologies, social and life-centred design as well as systemic design. This module challenges you to consider design practices from the artefact to the system level and gain an understanding of positionality of design and innovation on a micro, meso and macro level.
You will explore how design has impacted the world, solved and created problems and how design processes evolve to respond to the world's ever more complex challenges. This is done through collaborative and individual design challenges which will allow you to explore and test diverse and inventive methods to design and system thinking. You will undertake a journey of unlearning, experimenting, play and curiosity. This is a studio module which manoeuvres you into designerly ways of thinking, making and knowing.
Read more about the Introduction to Design Practice moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Introduces you to the distinct yet overlapping disciplines of Service and UX Design from a digital development angle. You will learn about common and emerging research and processes from the industry through live briefs, which will guide you from research concept to realisation. This module will challenge you to use design methods to conceptually and visually capture the social paradigm of designing and you'll learn how to navigate the needs of diverse groups who might have been at mismatch in current systems. You will develop and propose a UX digital or hybrid solution to a service problem.
Read more about the UX with Service Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Introduces you to the visual research and making methods commonly found in Graphic and Interactive Design to support you towards building a professional and academic design skillset and mindset. This module aims to develop your capabilities in visual reasoning, compositing, curating and rendering to support your further practice and prepare you for a specialisation process starting on L5.
Read more about the Visual Practice and Curiosity moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
There is an enormous responsibility on designers to gain a better understanding and relationship with the eco-systems around us in order to engage with new design ecologies and regenerative practices which foster a culture of repair and replenishment. This module will take you on a journey of regeneration by exploring methods and approaches in sustainable architecture, life-centred product and UX design, visual communication for change, alongside other disciplines through intricate practice-led design briefs.
Read more about the Design Ecologies and Regenerative Practice moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Year Two
Modules in the second year expose you to different areas of design. These modules provide the ideal testing ground for you to explore and reflect on the values that guide you, the topics that interest you, and the issues that you might want to tackle with your design practice. That is why you are referred to as 'Navigators' at this stage of learning.
This module introduces you to systemic practice which develops your understanding in how to research a system and its models, how to read and scope a system, how to map and synthesise it and scope design interventions in multiple areas of leverage towards systems change. This module is linked to real life contexts of local and regional communities.
Read more about the Systemic Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Fosters your development in becoming a 'designerly' agent for change through engagement with your local and regional communities. You will learn a range of approaches to participatory design, social action and entrepreneurship through investigating philosophies, methodologies, and case studies. The aims of this module are to give you the opportunity to explore and test methods, approaches and frameworks relating to design and systems thinking within an interdisciplinary context. This will shape your emerging specialist design practice and help you build your own designerly methodology.
Read more about the Social Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Explores approaches to materials through a transdisciplinary lens and an international perspective. It combines theoretical and practical approaches that call on both the sciences and the humanities to consider and interact with materials. You can pursue a diverse series of routes assessing the lives of materials through their qualities and transformations and will learn from a range of people who work professionally with materials in their academic and professional careers.
Read more about the Living with Materials moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
A deep dive into world building and a holistic practice-led enquiry into how society and its systems are designed. You will research, analyse and design your own future city. This module aims to develop your sense-making capabilities through design methods and practices by fostering your design mindset and skillset in contexts of designing for a sustainable and regenerative future.
Read more about the Future Labs moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Aims to provide you with a transdisciplinary approach to spatial design and management that encourages you to think about geographical 'space' as a more dynamic and populated environment than it might traditionally have been considered. You will work with the understanding of agency from your own perspective but also those of others in the human and more-than-human environment.
Read more about the Spatial Agency moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Final Year
The final year is all about you focusing on specialising your practice as versatile designers who can navigate and communicate across various disciplines. At this stage, you have become the 'Specialist.'
Provides you with the opportunity to explore processes of practice-based and academic research of, for and through design. You will inhabit a range of methodological approaches throughout and are encouraged to experiment with traditional and novel methods of design research, and to understand the importance of serious play. Ethical issues are embedded throughout the module, encouraging you to consider, address and critique your own standpoints and perspectives. This module offers you the opportunity for you to explore and understand structures for research funding.
Read more about the Design Research moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
This module explores how designers, in a variety of contexts, act entrepreneurially to negotiate a range of economic, social, and environmental factors that impact their practice. You will explore, and compare how different design businesses operate, the skills, mindset, and capabilities of those that lead them, the challenges that both leaders and businesses face, and how they address them. You will reflect on this knowledge, and how it can inform your own future career, to formulate a plan for your own personal and professional development.
Read more about The Business of Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
This end of course project challenges you to bring all your learning together, and to apply it to a significant design challenge requiring descriptive, analytical, critical and creative responses. This project is facing global challenges, focussing on systemic challenges relating to sustainable innovation goals, whilst using established and inventive methods. This will give you the opportunity to apply and reflect on your acquired knowledge and methods.
Read more about the Major Project moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
The aims of this module are for you to gain a deep understanding of how to identify strategic problems in an organisation, how to frame these as design questions and apply a multi-solving, networked and systems thinking underpinned approach to ideation and solution implementation. The design process will take you through diverse critical lenses of the pillars of sustainability, encompassing aspects of the social, economic and environmental.
Read more about the Strategic Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
This module aims to encourage you to build a comprehensive understanding of fundamental concepts, skills, and methodologies crucial for the design of effective policies and governance structures. You will be challenged to develop proficiency in policy analysis, explore various governance models, and master the stages of the policy design process. This module addresses the role of public administration, regulatory policy and compliance issues, and explores innovative governance approaches. Emphasis is placed on ethical considerations, social justice, social design and equity in policy design.
Through practical applications, including case studies, exercises, and practice-led learning, you will be challenged to apply theoretical and practical knowledge to real-world scenarios concerning the three pillars of sustainability: economy, society and environment. This module also focuses on developing policy evaluation skills and provides a global perspective on policy and governance challenges, preparing you to tackle emerging trends and future complexities in the field.
Read more about the Policy and Governance Design moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment.
Optional modules
You have the opportunity to choose from a range of modules from across the University allowing you to explore subjects that complement your design practice. Examples of these within the School for Cross-faculty Studies include:
Co-curricular Certificates
We offer a range of unique certificates outside of the curriculum as a way of continuing your professional development.
In the first year, you can complete certificates in Climate Literacy and Professional Communication.
Explore our range of certificates
