Course summary
*Subject to Validation Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. We are the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience. The university was recently voted 2nd in the UK for Facilities in the annual Whatuni Student Choice Awards, 3rd in the UK for Student Support, and 4th in the UK for Lecturers & Teaching Quality. Arts University Plymouth was crowned the 2024 Winner in South West England for the categories of University of the Year, Facilities, Student Support, and Learning & Teaching Quality. Why choose MA Design (Built Environment) at Arts University Plymouth? We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures. Design for the built environment is an expanding area of practice that encompasses both time-honoured heritage processes and an exciting exploration of new material applications across a range of diverse disciplines and industries. Our MA Design (Built Environment) places you at the overlap of these creative forces to consider where you can imagine new, unrealised forms and practices. A pro-active, Interdisciplinary community. New ideas and material practices do not develop in isolation. You come to university to be challenged, supported and to take risks in a context that will inspire you to innovate and understand craft as an active process of inquiry into material behaviours, possibilities and interdisciplinary forms. The course encourages conceptual exploration and transformation whether you are a jeweller, woodworker, biomaterial designer or ceramicist. Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research. We believe craft is a starting point rather than a destination. As a practice steeped in tacit knowledge that is often transmitted through hands-on skills and customs, the power of the direct creativity that it offers is aligned to your personal transformation. You will be trained to carry out material-led research processes in clay, glass, wood, biomaterials, metals, fibre and other materials that leads to personal discovery and future-oriented, contemporary professional options. World-class workshops and facilities: During your time on the course, you will have access to one of the most diverse and spacious ecosystems of workshops, studios and labs known in a contemporary art and design school. Based primarily in our Materials Lab, you are immersed in facilities that allow you to hone your existing skills and be introduced to novel processes. Our approach is to support the full range of analogue and digital processes where you can play and experiment with where the material meets the technological in your practice. Sustainable ethos and specialist knowledge: Part of the value of design-led creative practice is the fact that many traditional methods and techniques take into account the cycles, ecology and biodiversity of nature. Built into our craft course is an emphasis on the sustainable, non-extractive and regenerative approaches to working with materials, which not only provides a meaningful link between the past and the future, but puts you at the forefront of knowing the alternative ways of making that support new, more sustainable industries and give rise to material innovations that better serve the environment and planet.
Modules
The comprehensive Masters structure, which is shared across our specialist subjects, is a taught degree which enables a focus on creative strategies and processes through three sequential units which support you in investigating, testing and developing your ideas. The core tuition focuses on training, research methodology, critical thinking, design, practice-led research methods and professional and conceptual frameworks. All of our programmes have access to outstanding workshop facilities in the university. A unique component of our postgraduate curriculum is a programme of Research Intensives which invites all MA students to participate in short format, deep learning sessions in areas of creative expertise led by the university’s research-active staff and external specialists. These Research Intensives enrich subject-specific study with adjacent practices, cultural theories, and creative methodologies that will challenge historical assumptions of your subject and inspire innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches, giving you the opportunity to lead your discipline with original insights. You will be supported in your MA study by a Subject Tutor who is a specialist in your chosen discipline, to provide a consistent touchstone for the critical development and formal progression of your creative or theoretical work. In addition to your Subject Tutor, you will have ongoing tutorials, critiques, and discipline-specific seminars taught by other members of the postgraduate faculty who lead the curriculum units. By combining learning units with specialist assignments and personal project proposals, you will be able to achieve depth and specialisation within your subject area, while at the same time develop a critical methodology through techniques that can be applied across the commercial, social and public sectors.
Assessment method
The final module of the programme may be submitted as a dissertation or as practice, depending on which pathway best suits your concerns as a creative practitioner.
Entry requirements
MA applicants are normally expected to have an undergraduate degree at 2:2 or above. However, the strength of your creative practice and other forms of experience will be taken into account at the interview stage and we encourage you to start a conversation with us.
English language requirements
| Test | Grade | Additional details |
|---|---|---|
| Trinity ISE | Merit | Integrated Skills in English II (Level B2), minimum grade required: Reading: Merit, Listening: Merit Certificate valid for two years |
| IELTS (Academic) | 6 | IELTS (Level B2), minimum grade required: IELTS overall score of 6.5, minimum of score Listening: 6.0, Speaking: 6.0, Reading: 6.0, Writing: 6.0 Certificate valid for two years |
| PTE Academic | 59 | PTE Academic (Level B2), minimum grade required: Listening: 59, Reading: 59, Writing: 59, Speaking: 59 Certificate valid for two years |
Click here to find out the most up-to-date information on our English Language requirements
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
No fee information has been provided for this course
Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .
Additional fee information
No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
Provider information
Arts University Plymouth
Tavistock Place
Plymouth
PL4 8AT