Product & Furniture Design BA (Hons)

Product and Furniture Practice Process 1
You’ll be introduced to fundamental design processes from concept to outcome as well as research methods and visual communication techniques. You’ll learn about historical and contemporary practice, building your skills and confidence so you can begin exploring and experimenting.

Contextual Studies 1
Through a series of illustrated lectures and seminars, you’ll be introduced to a range of historical and contemporary contexts, beyond your own subject interests and alongside students from Interior Architecture and Design. Encouraging cross-disciplinary thinking as well as instilling the importance of broad contextual frame-working for innovative practice, you’ll be required to develop structured narratives which analyse and evaluate specific examples of crafts and/or design.

Product and Furniture Practice Process 2
Building on Product and Furniture Practice Process 1, you’ll test and develop your skills and material knowledge, enhancing your design ideas, processes and understanding. The study of people’s relationship to a particular product within an environment will further your design decisions.

Product and Furniture Practice Process 3
Developing competency in the range of processes, materials and manufacture learned in previous units, you’ll extend your understanding of the context of your work through relevant design practice and thinking. This will refine your ability to respond creatively and with confidence to project briefs.

Product and Furniture Practice Exploration 1
Through individual and team project briefs, you’ll extend and develop your conceptual thinking and design proposals, while demonstrating your decision making and external industry awareness. Project concepts remain the catalyst for further design development.

Contextual Studies 2
Objects and the environment within which they sit are fundamental to our understanding of the world. The purpose of this unit is to introduce a range of contexts demonstrating the importance of meaning, and how this meaning can be used to create and express value within design practices.

Product and Furniture Practice Exploration 2
Exploring projects in further detail, you’ll consider how a concept develops through to realisation and demonstrate your knowledge of this, from technical drawing to scale model creation.

Product and Furniture Practice Exploration 3
Within a defined framework, you’ll have the opportunity to develop work in response to a live brief, resulting in a finished product. You will be encouraged to develop and refine teamwork as well as individual approaches to research, designing and making, and to reflect upon the full scope what you explored through Year two.

On this course you'll have the unique opportunity within UCA to add an additional year of study at an overseas institution (either at a higher education establishment or workplace).

This optional year is designed to broaden your educational experience and deepen your understanding of cultural diversity, enabling you to study within a different cultural context and gain fresh perspectives. 

Studying abroad can be a life-changing experience. Living in another country, you'll experience new places, people, cultures and possibilities. You'll develop initiative, independence, motivation and, depending on where you go, a working knowledge of another language – all qualities employers are looking for. You will return to complete your degree with all the benefits of the International Year experience behind you.

To find out more about studying abroad as part of your course please see the Study Abroad section: Study abroad information

The International Year is not available to students enrolled onto the Professional Practice Year award.

You may enrol to undertake an additional ‘Professional Practice Year’ as an integral part of this course.  

This will take place in year three. You will undertake a work placement with a subject appropriate employer to further develop your skills and CV.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Professional Practice and Portfolio
Lectures and tutorials provide methodologies for the preparation of a portfolio of work, curriculum vitae, letter of application and interview techniques. You’ll also look to secure a work placement, of between two to eight weeks in duration.

Contextual Studies 3
You’ll conceive, develop and construct a personally meaningful portfolio of contextual research. This research will inform, augment and reflect upon your practice, will critically engage with a range of contextual and theoretical frameworks and will serve to support the positioning of your practice in relation to past, present and possible future endeavours.

Final Major Project
The purpose of this unit is for you to realise a graduate major project from a self-initiated brief, within a given framework, that realises individual potential. A selection of topics of a high level of design quality will be offered. 

Tuition fees
The course fees per year for 2021 entry are:

• UK students - £9,250 
• EU students - £9,250 (see fee discount information)
• International students - £16,950 (standard fee)
• International students - £16,270 (full early payment fee)