In your first year you'll study with our partner, ARU College. This module will provide you with the necessary skills to begin studying at level 4 in art, design and related courses. You'll be introduced to the core skills necessary to succeed in higher education, including researching and referencing appropriately, demonstrating appropriate ICT skills, and communicating effectively verbally and in writing. You will be introduced to practical art and design skills including developing skills of visual storytelling, image-making both in traditional and digital media, visual language and communication, formulating an independent creative response to a broad range of subject matter. You'll also be introduced to the fundamentals of design from a creative perspective, and to some of the key ideas/movements dominating art, design and culture, during the past few centuries. You will work extensively in groups and collaboratively, with students from art and design, architecture and engineering pathways. The module is made up of the following eight constituent elements: Interactive Learning Skills and Communication (ILSC); Information Communication Technology (ICT); Composition and Style; Creative Workshops 1; Approach to Design; Critical and Contextual Studies; Creative Workshops 2; Specialist Project.
In this module we will consider the question what it is it is to be human in a designed environment and approach it from the point of view of text and practice. You will begin by exploring significant design language and how we make use of it, through annotated case studies, physical testing and examples, supported by social and cultural theory. You will examine some significant concepts such as suspension, cantilever, tension and compression, thermal massing, environmental concerns within the building industry, and vertical studies. To explore these ideas, we will conduct physical experiments, build small scale models and undertake a field trip. You will generate regular reports based on your findings and contextualise these with case studies where these concepts have informed design and environmental decisions. Your experimentation and case studies around design and the body will be supported with social questions, which will ask you to develop your thinking and consider how we may perceive particular design decisions and how these decisions inform the quality of our use. This work will include text-based and project-based analysis drawn from the languages of environmental psychology.
View the full module definitionPart of becoming a designer is to engage in the creative and reflective culture of the studio process. This module is designed to help you to become a creative practitioner and studio projects are informed by, and reflect, industry process and practice. Tutors will guide you through your design process which, once cemented, will help your entrance into industry and support your own journey within industry. Your first studio is designed to help you to develop your creativity, your design tools and the foundational culture of working as a designer and inform your subsequent creative development and your design process within your degree. You will develop your skills in design research, design process and your own ability to convey your ideas to others and to respond to feedback as you would in a professional environment. You will be encouraged to experiment within given design questions, and then test ideas using various design tools, engage in discussion and evaluate your work. Projects will have individual and collaborative elements with other designers in which you will be encouraged to work together, reflect on your own development and those of your peers. Your creative development will be supported through developing a design vocabulary and through drawing and 3D making and use of technologies such as Computer Aided-Design (CAD).
View the full module definitionDesigners make use of hand drawing as part of their developmental design process and to communicate their resolved ideas. This module will form the foundation of your ability to test and communicate your ideas in both 2D and in 3D. Drawing is a large part of how we find out, test and then communicate what we think. It is a process we repeat and refine to clarify our ideas. Going through this process gives us confidence to know that our creative decisions can work and assists our creative growth. Within industry, these skills are highly valued. As drawing is a process in itself, you will learn progressively, beginning with some elementary skills of setting up a drawing, visual language, use of tools and materials, how we can think through the use of different scales. You will learn to create measured drawings such as plans, sections, elevations, which you will then develop into 3D drawings, making use of some design tools such as testing through layering of drawings. You will apply these skills using industry-standard computer software, with outcomes demonstrating your learning through your completed portfolio of hand-generated projects, which show each stage of your process: research; experimentation; and final portfolio. As your skills develop, you will demonstrate clear and compelling construction detailing of your live studio projects.
View the full module definitionThis module builds on the histories, contexts, and theories introduced at Level 4, and is designed to enable you to build a framework in which to situate yourself and your developing practice as a critical, creative practitioner. With the support of lectures, seminars, as well as independent reading and research, you will consider your work, as well as the work of other creative professionals, within broader historical, theoretical, and critically informed contexts. You'll also start to engage with the ethical considerations and responsibilities that are increasingly urgent for professionals working in the creative industries today and begin to develop an increasingly detailed theoretical knowledge of your discipline. You'll explore and examine critical issues and debates within a variety of creative practices, through examples that address, complicate and problematise key topics which you will analyse in depth. The curriculum content is responsive, meaning that learning activities are open and flexible, and function in relationship to current events, discourses, and emerging debates.
View the full module definitionDeveloping as a designer requires us to collaborate effectively and communicate efficiently with confidence, personality and clarity. This second studio module will help you to build on your creative speculation, expand your design tools and process within larger scaled, socially challenging projects, live projects and collaborative projects. You will incorporate questions of sustainability and inclusivity through your design. The studio seeks to help you expand your understanding of how and where design may be applied professionally, so challenging projects of various scales and contexts will be offered. With a focus on human activities and the narratives generated from your exploration, the projects will incorporate interior spaces and connecting exterior spaces, exhibition, interpretive installation, exhibition furniture, design for performance, and lighting. Your outcomes will be based on a completed portfolio of projects showing each stage of your process of research, process of experimentation and final design decisions, and will usually be exhibited, broadcast or screened, with the work contributing to discourses around social concerns. If your work is exhibited, you will design the mode of exhibition and demonstrate, with guidance, the construction of clear visual narrative contexts. The studio will make use of live projects and follow an arc of research, process, design iteration, prototyping, refinement, detailing and installation within public spaces. Part of your work will be realised at human scale and installed at various sites for public use. This will help you develop skills around project management, professional communication, budgeting and specification skills which are significant within industry. Feedback will be provided at pivotal moments of the design process, with indicative grading provided on specific tasks, reflecting professional practice and the way that, as designers, we may meet with clients.
View the full module definitionRuskin Modules are designed to prepare our students for a complex, challenging and changing future. These interdisciplinary modules provide the opportunity to further broaden your perspectives, develop your intellectual flexibility and creativity. You will work with others from different disciplines to enable you to reflect critically on the limitations of a single discipline to solve wider societal concerns. You will be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines to apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, seek and maximise opportunities to realise your potential to give you a distinctive edge and enhance your success in the workplace.
In this module you'll develop an understanding of different career paths in the creative industries. You'll explore different professional environments, business models and patterns of career progression relevant to creative practitioners. You'll explore contemporary developments in the creative industries and examine the role of the creative professional in fast-changing business environments. Through lectures, workshops, and seminars, you'll learn about self-employment and entrepreneurship, and you'll investigate the practical considerations involved in setting up a studio, brand or agency, and the significance of small-scale enterprises within the creative sector. Individual and group tutorials will address your personal career aspirations and help you to reflect on your individual qualities as a professional. You'll also identify which sectors of industry and which types of working environments may best suit your qualities and skills. You'll prepare for future work opportunities, a Placement Year, or progress directly into Level 6. By the end of this module, you'll have developed your professional aspirations, considered the career route you might take after graduating, and understand the steps to take to launch your career.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll develop your visual and technical literacy, expand your understanding of technical aspects of spatial design and build on established skills in visual communication. You'll explore the application of conceptual and technical drawing, 3D modelling and fabrication, analogue and digital visualisation techniques, as well as layout and composition. You're encouraged to test how a wide range of media can be employed and combined to support design narratives in your work and gradually develop your own confident, visual language, integrating visual and verbal elements. The learning in the module is task-based and takes place in the dedicated Interior Design studio room, the computer lab and the 3D workshops. Through a series of design and making tasks, lectures, case studies and workshops, you'll explore detailing and ergonomics for interior design, scale, proportion, materials and light. At the end of the module you'll be able to show different stages of your process of research and experimentation along with volumetric tests, image construction and portfolio compilation. You'll also have created diverse types of drawings, diagrams, models and visuals and will be able to demonstrate how these can be used to communicate with different audiences and in different academic and professional contexts.
View the full module definitionStudio Culture 3, Major Project builds on the skills, processes and communication methods from previous Studio Culture modules to help you to prepare for your entry into industry. Design processes and outcomes generated in this module will have greater complexity and depth and are driven by larger cultural questions that you will be encouraged to explore. The outcomes of your projects will demonstrate your own confident visual language, focussed design studio research into human activities, site understanding, interior spatial use and materiality through project detailing. We will move site scale to a room scale then hand scale while consistently addressing individual design questions. Each of these scales form a project that, when combined, form an overall outcome for the module. Engaging visual communication that propels further design thinking is particularly important throughout the module as your audience should understand the questions you are addressing at all levels of your projects. You will be given an overarching proposition to research and respond to and from this you will generate a unique and often personal set of design questions which will culminate in the major project of your degree. The module follows industry practice with module projects broken into various research, process and communication phases. Each phase offers specific aspects and scales to help you to develop your own management of your workflow while helping you to develop as a professional creative practitioner. Your connections with industry and peers are supported through critique, industry critique, industry visitors, off site networking events and your participation in exhibitions. You will have opportunity to generate briefs for other designers for live projects to understand the briefing process more thoroughly in order to assist your own development.
View the full module definitionIn the Research Project you will develop your independent study with the guidance of a tutor. You will devise your own research inquiry which may reflect on / co-ordinate with / enhance your own studio work or sit independently of these. You will be develop an ability to be self-reflexive and adopt a critical distance through weekly discussion-based seminars you will learn from each other's research supported by individual tutorials with the module tutor, guest tutors and visiting lecturers. You will produce a research output appropriate to the level of study. Ongoing personal research, tutor discussions and peer to peer engagement will be recorded in the form of a diary, contextualised and applied to the final composition of work in the form of a text and image-based document.
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