Course summary

Do you enjoy design and want to work creatively from the scale of a product to the city? Do you want to get hands-on with materials and making? Are you interested in interdisciplinary working and want to learn entrepreneurial design business skills? Design for Future Living aims to develop exciting and innovative design thinking, questioning preconceptions about how society lives now and into the future. Developed in collaboration with TV architect George Clarke’s Ministry of Building, Innovation and Education (MOBIE), the course places you at the forefront of the next generation of designers tackling the design and delivery of new homes. You could break new ground through an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to designing for future living.The course prepares a new model of creative, skilled and disruptive designer with knowledge of home, digital technologies and creative design. What's covered in the course? How we live affects us all. Housing is a basic human right but what we produce doesn’t always meet today’s needs. Our homes should be smart, well designed and affordable; they should create a sense of community, respect the environment and support changing family structures. We urgently need new design thinking to revolutionise how we live. The BA (Hons) Design for Future Living is a unique opportunity for you to lead the way in designing how and where we live. Through innovative ideas, new design methods, advanced technologies and entrepreneurial skills, you will critique, challenge and disrupt traditional thinking around the idea of ‘home’ and develop radical alternatives. Design - the course embodies our ethos of “design through the scales”, from product design, furniture, interior spaces and architecture to urban design. In the final year, you will have the opportunity to pursue your own interests through a major project. Make – we have a tradition and pre-occupation with “making”, inspired by Birmingham’s industrial and artisan heritage, making this an ideal setting for exploring new approaches to the production and manufacture of homes. Using our workshops and the city beyond, you will explore advanced materials, digital and analogue fabrication and technology transfer from product design, manufacturing and industry. Live – we see houses not as ‘one size fits all’ units but as homes for specific users in specific places. Throughout the course, you will be challenged to consider the implications of your designs on how people live. The course prepares a new model of creative, skilled and disruptive designers with knowledge of how new understandings of home, digital technologies and creative design can shape the places we live.

Course details