Curious about studying Interior Architecture and Design - BA (Hons)at Birmingham City University? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
City Centre Campus (The Curzon Building)
Full Time
Sep 2027
3 Year
Do you want to learn how to transform spaces? This innovative Interior Architecture and Design degree course covers a broad range of design possibilities, ranging from reordering to transforming space. Our course will provide you with the facilities and education that you’ll need to succeed within the industry, as well as offering excellent opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and networking with industry partners.
Professional Placement YearThis course offers an optional professional placement year. This allows you to spend a whole year with an employer, following successful completion of your second year, and is a great way to find out more about your chosen career. Some students even return to the same employers after completing their studies. If you choose to pursue a placement year, you will need to find a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will be able to draw on the University’s extensive network of local, regional, and national employers, and the support of our Careers teams. If you are able to secure a placement, you can request to be transferred to the placement version of the course. Please note that fees are payable during your placement year, equivalent to 20% of the total full-time course fee for that year.
This module enables students to [re]order spatial activities and space planning to design creative and innovative interiors by exploring spatial concepts, their design and representation. These are key components in the repertoire of the interior architect and designer. This module focuses on your understanding of the relationships between adjacent spaces/activities, spatial hierarchies, and the more ephemeral qualities of light, shade, and colour.
This design and make module seeks to embed an understanding of human physicality and the manipulation of space, which will enable you to design with user centred considerations in mind and appreciate and develop awareness of the interface between products/artefacts/environments and users. This module explores and challenges the physical, psychological and emotional factors that influence user responses to their environments and actions in their everyday life.
This module is the first one of a series that will culminate in your final major project. You will be asked to develop an interior design project within a given brief. On this first level of the Transforming Space series, you will be approaching the design of a single-function space. You are expected to undertake research on a programme you are not familiar with and integrate and articulate it within a given site. You will also have to demonstrate the ability to apply relevant knowledge presented through specialised seminars, workshops and lectures to your interior design project.
This module engages with the key design ideologies of the 20th Century. The History of Western Architecture has an on-going complex relationship with Modernism. Despite having moved beyond Modernism and post-modernism, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the designed environment; buildings, furniture, interiors and the public realm, still holds traces of and responds to elements of the Modernist ideologies. This Module will enable you to engage with design precedents from the 20th Century through a series of lectures and seminars. You will learn about their history and the social, political and cultural context that gave rise to specific design movements within this period.
This module builds on the introduction you have had to communication approaches within the discipline of interiors and will provide you with a deeper awareness and understanding of a variety of industry relevant communication methods, while also developing the breadth and depth of your visualisation language. This will include ways in which design concepts are demonstrated through appropriate portfolio techniques, leading toward you becoming a design aware and industry aware student.
This module will enable you to approach the challenges that the discipline of Interior Architecture and Design present from an interdisciplinary perspective. Interior Architecture and Design is a young discipline that draws its language mainly from the discipline of Architecture. It has yet to define its own distinctive methods. It is also a field that draws on many other fields to inform itself, such as the arts, literature, film, photography, fashion, etc. and so, by its nature, touches many disciplines.
This module is the second in a series of Transforming Space modules that will culminate in your final major project. You will be asked to develop an interior design project within a given brief. On this second level of the Transforming Space series, you will be approaching the design of a mix-use space. You are expected to undertake research on a programme you are not familiar with and integrate and articulate the spatial functions set on the brief. At this level you will be asked to make a critical choice amongst several options that can involve several sites, spatial functions... etc., to further explain the brief.
The main focus of this module is to enable you to develop more advanced CAD skills (SolidWorks) and use these in relation to the design process. As your skills develop you will be expected to utilise and correctly synthesise the SolidWorks program in line with industry recognised production methods and techniques. This will enable you to develop and realise designed concepts using digital technologies and to effectively communicate design intentions within the context of manufacturing and industry.
The combination of applied contextual research & preparatory analysis is at the forefront of the developmental procedures of design. Often the in-depth investigation and critical analysis of contextual factors not only outlines opportunities for the advancement of design practice, but further defines the constraints of any practical applications in design methods & techniques. In all senses the planning and preparation of relevant materials to support the design process is essential, along with the ability to self-manage individual activities.
This module will enable you to discover the challenges of exploring design feasibility related to multiple projects within the discipline of Interior Architecture and Design from a professional perspective. Taking 2-3 project titles as potential outline briefs, alongside specific existing sites, objectively interrogate them by exploring the potential of design, technology, structure and professional practice. With objectivity you will synthesise each outcome, leading to an emergence of one stronger feasible project.
The purpose of the module is to enable you to undertake a sustained, in-depth and theoretically informed research project exploring an area that is of personal interest to you. It is important that we can support you appropriately, so you will be guided towards choosing a research topic which is relevant to your discipline and in which your lecturers have expertise. The outcome may take the form of a written dissertation or a practice-based portfolio.
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