Interior Design
Interior Design
4 years (with placement year and/or overseas study)
As a BA (Hons) Interior Design student you will explore the dynamic interplay between human experience and our built environment. You will challenge and interpret the spaces we occupy and reoccupy through both creative and research-informed methodologies.
Through immersive studio-based learning, you will develop skills in visual communication and model making while gaining comprehensive technical knowledge. This foundation will prepare you to tackle real-world challenges across a variety of sectors, including temporary installations, event and exhibition design, retail environments, workplace innovation, hospitality design, furniture creation, and interior architecture. You'll explore the relationships between these sectors, whilst fostering your individual ambitions.
This approach allows you investigate the subject of interiors through live briefs, speculative futures, and interdisciplinary exploration, giving you the experience and knowledge you need for a career in industry.
This course prioritises your experience and well-being, incorporating reflective practices to help you explore your role as a designer with a focus on social and environmental responsibility, placemaking, and materiality. Through dynamic learning activities and co-curricular enrichment, you will build confidence, creativity, professionalism, and career readiness. Graduates of this programme are equipped to navigate diverse career pathways and are empowered to shape the future of interior design.
Special Features
- Award Winning: Winner of the 2025 Student Union Teaching Awards 'Course of the Year'
- Globally recognised: We are ranked in the top 100 schools for art and design in the world (QS World Rankings 2025).
- Live projects: There will be regular live projects throughout the course. These have previously included exhibition design in collaboration with Mather & Co and Manchester Met's Special Collections, and clients such Manchester Craft and Design Centre and Manchester International Festival.
- Design competitions: We also have success within design competitions, previous students have participated with awards such as the Retail Design Awards, competition briefs for the Royal Society of Arts student awards, and the Creative Conscience Award.
- Study trips: You may have the opportunity to undertake study trips to key design cities, recent trips have including Berlin, Venice Architecture Biennale, Milan Design Week, Copenhagen and New York.
- International exchange: Students have previously participated in exchange visits to Australia, Canada, the USA and Europe.
- Visiting expertise: Visiting designers and lecturers assist in the course team via lectures, projects and workshops.
- Studio visits: You may have the option to attend studio visits in London and Manchester across a range of design practices.
- Collaboration: You will take part in an innovative module offered to students across Manchester School of Art which encourages interdisciplinary study, collaboration and external-facing projects.
Course Content
The distinctiveness of BA (Hons) Interior Design at Manchester School of Art lies in its passion for a future-focussed curriculum and delivery. The course will provide you with an educational experience that transforms your thinking, enabling you to apply methodologies for creative and responsible design solutions within a spatial context.
The core elements of the course are taught by practising designers and architects, touching on all aspects of interiors. As an interior specialist, we believe the School of Art's environment is the perfect setting to nurture, explore and push the boundaries of the discipline.
Design thinking will underpin studio teaching, whilst inter-disciplinary opportunities will remain at the heart of curriculum content and delivery. The programme embeds external engagement, with strong industry connections and partnerships. This materialises in a variety of ways including, design studio visits in London and Manchester, networking events, and portfolio reviews which has proven to build confidence and resilience in our students.
At Manchester School of Art, our design courses are taught in vibrant, open studio spaces alive with energy and creativity. These dynamic environments foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, encouraging students to engage, experiment, and learn from one another within a culture of shared practice and innovation.
Year 1
In the first year, you'll explore interior design through research and creativity, focusing on space, place, and speculative design. You’ll develop skills in drawing, making, and digital communication, while considering history, people, and environment in your design process. Emphasising inclusive narratives and sustainability, you’ll lay the foundation for professional practice through visual and verbal communication.
Future X: Kinship
In this module, you will explore your creative field through questions of belonging, encouraging you to consider relationships with the planet, people and place. The module functions as a Speculative Laboratory where we embrace More-Than-Human perspectives and develop new disciplinary connections to create innovative and regenerative ways of living and interacting with the world. This is an opportunity to begin to explore how creativity can be a catalyst for meaningful change.
Year 2
The second year of the course combines the poetic aspirations with the pragmatic requirements and materiality of the discipline, teaching you to investigate and develop imaginative solutions to real-world challenges - both locally and globally.
This is achieved through technical CAD drawing, model making, freehand drawing and material investigations - situating design thinking and communication methods in the professional realisation of projects. Projects are underpinned by the disciplines regulatory requirements such as building regulations and prepare you for a professional audience, with a number of live projects and appraisals with studios.
You may undertake a work placement at the end of the second year.
Future X: Symbiosis
In this module, you will tackle complex planetary challenges by working with students from different creative fields. Through our lab-studio-classroom, experimental approaches to practice will explore the notion of ‘What if?’ as a way to explore open-ended enquiries that allow critical space to propose alternative futures. Through multidisciplinary perspectives you'll develop innovative responses to societal issues, combining practical skills and theory to create resilient, inclusive outcomes for our changing world.
Year 3
The third year of the course provides the testbed to demonstrate the informed and rigorous design process you have developed throughout your degree, highlighting the consideration of socially and environmentally responsible approaches to people, place and materiality, through the realisation of a final self-initiated research and design proposal.
You will establish a theoretical framework that informs and underpins the development of your design proposal and future graduate ambitions.
You will have project appraisals from studios, and undertake design studio visits and portfolio surgeries in preparation for future employment. You may also take part in the final degree show, which is the culmination of your three years of study.
Future X: Re-worlding
In this module, you will explore the boundaries of where your discipline intersects with other fields of practice as a catalyst for innovation. You will use theory to contextualise thinking, moving beyond the silo of subject specialism, and engage in imaginative experiments to rethink traditional approaches and roles in 'the profession’. This module helps prepare you for your final year of study, setting the context for the year ahead.
Placements
Professionalism is embedded in all aspects of the course through visits from respected professional critics from industry, live projects and collaborative modules. There is the option to complete a fourth 'sandwich' year consisting of a work placement and/or study overseas between your second and third years, as well as the potential for shorter-term work placements during the standard three years of study.
These opportunities are student-led but supported by academic staff as well as the University’s dedicated Placements and Exchanges Teams. The University has specific overseas partners for study abroad options - both in Europe and further afield. Some work placement openings are advertised through the Manchester Met's Careers Hub but are mainly self-sourced with support.
Assessment Methods
Continuous formative and summative assessment with feedback and discussion on completion of all units. The programme ends with a School of Art exhibition.
Assessment Weightings & Contact Hours
10 credits equates to 100 hours of study, which is a combination of lectures, seminars and practical sessions, and independent study. A three year degree qualification typically comprises 360 credits (120 credits per year). The exact composition of your study time and assessments for the course will vary according to your option choices and style of learning, but it could be—
Study
- Year 1 25% lectures, seminars or similar; 75% independent study
- Year 2 25% lectures, seminars or similar; 75% independent study
- Year 3 100% placement (optional)
- Year 4 20% lectures, seminars or similar; 80% independent study
Assessment
- Year 1 100% coursework
- Year 2 100% coursework
- Year 3 100% placement (optional)
- Year 4 100% coursework
Student Work
Visit our online galleries to see examples of work by Interior Design students.
Interior Design students recently participated in Mise en Scène, a collaboration between the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) and the Manchester School of Art to create a unique sensory experience.
Staff
- Lucy Gannon
Programme Leader
— - Lois Blackwell
Lecturer
— - Fabrizio Cocchiarella
Senior Lecturer
— - Pattilyn Crozier
Senior Lecturer
— - Helen Darnell
Senior Lecturer
— - Franziska Pilling
Lecturer
— - Simone Ridyard
Senior Lecturer
— - Andrew Thurman
Senior Lecturer
— - Joe Trickett
Lecturer
— - Jade Wilson
Lecturer
—
'We wanted to think about how to take care of student wellbeing'
Winners of the annual Department of Design student awards announced at the Degree Show.
Graduates
Graduates from the course go on to work all over the world and have gained successful employment for design agencies and architectural practices such as Johnson Naylor, Sheppard Robson/ID:SR, BDP, 5Plus Architects, Conran & Partners, Casson-Mann, Mather & Co, Foster & Partner, Jack Morton Worldwide, Project Studio, LOVE Creative, Sheila Bird Studio, kin.
Because of the wide and diverse skillset taught as part of the course's curriculum, BA (Hons) Interior Design graduates have also established other careers within the professional creative industries including exhibition curation, TV and theatre stage set design, furniture design, brand design, event and project management, architecture, teaching and postgraduate study.
Alumni from the course have also set up their own creative practices, including M1NT, Incognito, YOUTH, Ekho Studio, and T. Black.
Making an Application
How to Apply
Apply through UCAS.
We will ask you to provide a Digital Portfolio to support your application.
You will be notified of our decision through UCAS.
Entry Requirements
| UCAS Tariff Points/Grades Required | 104-112. GCE A levels - grades BCC or equivalent Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma - grade DMM Access to HE Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum 106 UCAS Tariff points UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma - grade of Merit overall OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma - grade DMM T level - We welcome applications from students undertaking T level qualifications. Eligible applicants will be asked to achieve a minimum overall grade of Merit as a condition of offer IB Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum overall score of 26 or minimum 104 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects Other Level 3 qualifications equivalent to GCE A level are also considered. A maximum of three A level-equivalent qualifications will be accepted towards meeting the UCAS tariff requirement. AS levels, or qualifications equivalent to AS level, are not accepted. The Extended Project qualification (EPQ) may be accepted towards entry, in conjunction with two A-level equivalent qualifications. Please contact the University directly if you are unsure whether you meet the minimum entry requirements for the course. Learn more about MMU's Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. |
|---|---|
| Specific GCSE Requirements | GCSE grade C/4 in English Language or Level 2 Functional Skills English pass |
| International Baccalaureate | IB Diploma with minimum 26 points overall or 104-112 UCAS Tariff points from Higher Level. If you plan to meet the Level 2 course requirements through your IB Diploma you will need to achieve Higher Level 4 or Standard Level 5 in English Points |
International Students
A minimum IELTS score of 6.0 overall with no individual element below 5.5 is required.
There’s further information for international students on our international website if you’re applying with non-UK qualifications.
Tuition Fees 2026 Entry
The fees for 2026 entry are still to be confirmed.
See Funding your studies for further information and advice.
Additional Costs
Specialist Costs
Optional £100* —A ‘studio toolkit’ of basic design equipment including items such as pens, sketch pads, erasers, scissors and adhesives. Costs ranging from £30 - £100 per year.
Professional Costs
Student membership fees are available across all disciplines. You will be made aware of these however, they are not mandatory.
Other Costs
Study trips
Optional national and/or international study trips, typically during year one and two. These are mostly funded by students.
Costings are sourced from university-approved agents and will vary in-line with the current market and student numbers.
Laptop
Indicative cost PC Laptop: £600 -£1,000 (dependent on screen size) Indicative cost MacBook Pro: £1,500 - £2,200 (dependent on screen size)
Loan laptops and iMac/PC workstations are also available across the campus.
Workshop and Materials
Materials are provided for workshop inductions, further materials used when developing individual student work are available for purchase at cost from workshop stores. Costs are dependent on the specifics of student project ambitions.
Print Costs
You may be required to print work for assessment presentations through years one - three. A range of printing outcomes can be achieved at low cost using Man Met / School of Art printing facilities.
In year three, there could be an approximate additional amount of £100, towards printing cost for the degree show exhibition.
Indicative print / binding costs for the degree show – £100- £200 depending on individual projects.
* All amounts shown are estimates.