Undergraduate BA (Hons)
Spatial and Interior Design
Add technical skills to your artistic flair and take the first step towards a creative career
Come along to one of our autumn Open Days in October and November. Hear from staff and students about our courses, find out about our accommodation and see our stunning campuses for yourself.
Spatial and interior design is an expanding field that offers rewarding and exciting careers for innovative creatives who have the skills to transform the spaces we live, work and socialise in.
You'll study all aspects of spatial and interior design, working in design studio spaces to develop your own style. You’ll learn how to thrive in the digital age, developing a responsive practice and gaining experience in 2D, 3D and 4D – with moving images. You'll develop your own style, discovering which creative and practical areas you want to specialise in. You’ll graduate with an extensive portfolio that not only showcases your creative, technical and problem-solving skills, but one that makes employers sit up and take notice.
Whether your future lies in working in the fixed spaces of retail and urban environments, designing temporary structures for festivals, or using your imagination to transform existing spaces for advertising and marketing campaigns, at Kent you'll gain the skills you need to realise your ambitions.
You'll present your designs in our Digital Crit Space, having created them in our modern design studios, model workshops, computer studio and labs.
The United Nations 17 sustainability goals inform all your project briefs at Kent, helping you to build a sustainable world.
Produce live briefs for a range of clients giving you a taste of what it's like to be a professional in the field. You can also opt to take a placement year.
Boost your CV and improve your career prospects by studying abroad. You'll discover a new culture, learn a lot about yourself and have a fantastic time.
In your final year, you'll have the opportunity to showcase your work to your peers but also to invited guests from the industry. A great chance to shine!
The University will consider applications from students offering a wide range of qualifications. Students offering qualifications not listed are welcome to contact us for further advice. All applicants will be required to submit a portfolio, for more information click here.
BBC in art/design/technology related subjects.
Distinction, Merit, Merit in an appropriate subject.
30 points overall or 15 points at HL, including Visual Arts or Design Technology at HL 5 or SL 6.
Pass all components of the University of Kent International Foundation Programme with a 60% overall average including 60% in Design/Art and Design module (plus 50% in LZ013 Maths and Statistics if you do not hold GCSE Maths at 4/C or equivalent).
The University will consider applicants holding T level qualifications in subjects closely aligned to the course.
The University welcomes applications from Access to Higher Education Diploma candidates for consideration. A typical offer may require you to obtain a proportion of Level 3 credits in relevant subjects at merit grade or above.
Portfolio advice - Spatial and Interior Design applicants
As a Designer you get paid to have ideas. As part of your application to the University of Kent, you are required to submit a portfolio as evidence of your artistic ability and potential to present your ideas visually.
Take time to plan this from the moment you decide to apply. Assessors at the University are expecting an indication of work in progress showing how you approach an idea or subject and develop the work from initial thought, through experimentation and enquiry, to resolved work. We do not expect to see professional outcomes at this level.
Guidance
Assessors are interested in how you have decided to put your portfolio together; it should be carefully planned and well presented. They will also be judging your ability to edit your work, so be selective and strategic in your choice of material. If you have lots of high-quality work, include it to showcase your talent and commitment. If you haven’t, select your best: these key gems can show us that you know what you are good at, and how to show it. Resist the temptation to pad out your portfolio with mediocre work.
A strong portfolio is likely to display the following:
How we assess your portfolio
Portfolios are assessed by academic staff who are particularly interested in how you research and develop ideas in a visual way and how you engage with design. This is broken down into four main areas:
1. Visual Research and Enquiry – shows the level of your engagement in intelligent, structured visual enquiry and how well you communicate this.
2. Idea Development – shows your ability to appropriately explore and develop ideas, and your level of skills in the use of materials or techniques.
3. Selection and Resolution – shows how well you judge which ideas have the most appropriate potential and your ability to bring them to a level of completion appropriate to your intended outcome.
4. Contextual Awareness – shows the extent of your knowledge of the subject you have applied for and how your work relates to it.
How the content of a portfolio provides evidence for the above categories will vary enormously depending on the person – no two portfolios will be the same.
How to submit your portfolio
We will request a portfolio from you once your application has come through to us. Please upload your portfolio as a PDF document to the Kent Vision applicant portal. Please note, for uploads, the file size needs to be 5MB or under. If your file size is over 5MB, please email your portfolio to portfolio@kent.ac.uk and include your Applicant ID in the subject line.
This module listing is based on the current curriculum and may change year to year in response to new curriculum developments and innovation.
On this module students will be introduced to a range of 2D & 3D design techniques, processes, essential skills, and understanding to enable them to quickly and confidently communicate their own design concepts and solutions in response to creative exercises and briefs. The skills taught on this module will be required, developed and deployed on many other modules throughout the programme, and should be considered essential core skills. Spatial and Interior Design students will work in an open studio, in order to establish early an ethos, where design is studied and seen to operate in the digital realm, on the page and spatially and environmentally in the physical realm.
This module will provide a broad introduction to the important key design movement, people and ideas in the development of design culture from pre twentieth century to the present day. This will include an exploration of designers, artists and media processes that have been significant in transforming our seeing and thinking in Spatial and Interior Design.
On this module students will be introduced to the fundamental principles of material and media. Both media and materiality collectively form a key pillar of knowledge for spatial and interior designers, whose role usually entails and relies on an understanding of media and materiality to make their creative designs tangible, presentable and built – in a form true to original concept. This module introduces students to the process of material selection (including an evaluation of the inherent qualities of materials and finishes through development of a critical approach), material specification (the process of how to accurately assign a material or finish within a spatial / interior design project), alongside the process of how media and materials are deployed and managed – including building an awareness of suppliers and the basic approach to constructing a physical or virtual material library. Students will learn more about media and materiality through lectures and workshops, but will also be expected to conduct and share research into both within the module, for the benefit of all peers.
The story or narrative is at the core of the majority of advertising and marketing campaigns as well as discrete design outcomes. This module will introduce the identification of narrative elements from a range of sources, understanding narrative structures with particular emphasis on narrative and emotional arc, often a combination of both. Exploring the hand drawn, collage and photomontage, utilising a rich range of techniques. Final projects can take experimental adventurous interpretations of a storyboard, including 2D & 3D comics, graphic novel book form, 3D structures and performance space (including live action/animation of space). Knowledge and skills gained on this module will be transferable to creative projects across the programmes.
This module focuses on embedding employability within a design curriculum in a seamless and meaningful way within the context of students' future working environments. Students will identify their own strengths and talents, form their own creative agencies and plan their own career trajectory. The aim of this module is to evaluate critically and develop a focused understanding of the practice concerns of the creative business sector. It is anticipated that students will understand the changing creative job market and be well placed to make appropriate careers decisions accordingly. The module will also have a design project that engages with the city and the urban environment. Several external talks and visits will focus on design jobs within the design sector and will provide a useful contact network for future internships and work experience.
This module will provide a broad introduction to the important key people and ideas in the development of sustainability culture from the twentieth century to the present day. This will include an exploration of designers, artists and philosophers that have been significant in transforming our seeing and thinking. Key concept includes circular design, circular economy, system mapping, system design and system thinking.
On this module students will be introduced to the fundamental principles of material and environment. Material, construction and environment collectively form a key pillar of knowledge for spatial and interior designers, whose role usually entails and relies on an understanding of materiality to make their creative designs tangible, presentable and built – in a form true to original concept. This module introduces students to the process of material selection (including an evaluation of the inherent qualities of materials and finishes through development of a critical approach), material specification (the process of how to accurately assign a material or finish within a spatial / interior design project), alongside the process of how materials are deployed and managed – including building an awareness of suppliers and the basic approach to constructing a physical or virtual material library. Students will learn more about materiality through lectures and workshops, but will also be expected to conduct and share research into both within the module, for the benefit of all peers.
Non-permanent architectural structures have a long history, form and function changing with technological developments and shifting societal needs and desires. In this module students will investigate this development through lectures and seminars and practice based exercises. Nomadic tent structures, market stalls, festival stages and stadium shows that arrive in a dozen articulated wagons will be investigated in terms of social context, habitation and transportation. The structural geometry of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes and tensegrity will inform student's work with an emphasis on craft and simple engineering. This will involve hands on exploration of materials, structures, construction techniques, fixings and function. Finding out how structures remain stable, students will engage in thinking and learning through making. Multiple re-use and environmental sustainability will be an important consideration.
Students will design and develop modular systems that can have various functions and applications. For example; exhibition stands, display units, pop up retail units. The modular system will be experimental and may be realised in a combination of materials at different scales.
You can extend your studies from three to four years by taking the Year in Industry option (this option is not available if you are studying on a part-time basis). This provides the opportunity to gain relevant workplace experience as part of your programme of study. You can also increase your contacts and network so that you can hit the ground running when you graduate.
The Year in Industry is taken in addition to your standard undergraduate programme and normally falls between your second and final year. You typically work on a placement for the full calendar year, and salary and holiday entitlements vary according to the employer. The year is assessed on a pass/fail basis through employer feedback and a written report that you submit. Students also have the option to take a Term in Industry.
Going abroad as part of your degree is an amazing experience and a chance to develop personally, academically and professionally. You experience a different culture, gain a new academic perspective, establish international contacts and enhance your employability.
You spend your year abroad at one of our partner universities. Places and destination are subject to availability, language and degree programme. To find out more, please see Go Abroad.
This module examines the theory and practice behind the history, development and future trends of adapt and reuse in our existing ‘environments’, exploring how a variety of traditional and new technologies and techniques can be used to insert, intervene and appropriate space in time to a new audience.
The module is based around an initial series of case studies, visits and seminars, some which may take advantage of the Historic Dockyard by way of on-site case-study workshops. Other case studies will include the adapt and reuse spaces of major cultural institutions in London and the South East.
Once the theoretical groundwork has been covered, you will go on to design your own intervention in response to a design brief. This may take the form of conceptual visualisations, models and narrative storyboards to generate ideas for the creation of an innovative and narrative space in an existing site or building.
This module provides the student with an opportunity to design and realise a major spatial and/or interior design project (or coherent extract thereof) derived from their own developing interests and skills. It gives the student the opportunity to have significant control over the brief, their input and the outcome, affording them a significantly independent experience.
The module also introduces the student to lecturers acting as supervisors, with whom they negotiate their project brief and receive ongoing support. The module also asks students to develop their practice-based work towards a final outcome which may take the form of interior design, scenography, exhibition design, experience design and event design.
This module continues from the previous module to provide students with an opportunity to technically resolve the details of their design intervention. The design and integrated technical resolution must therefore be contextual and developed with reference to heritage, historical and social context of the existing built environment, as well as adapt and reuse strategy. This practical design project is supported by both lectures, seminars and workshops.
The module also introduces the student to lecturers acting as consultants, with whom they negotiate their project brief and receive ongoing support. They will also be considering where in the design field they wish to gain employment and to see this project as a calling card for future employers. The discussions of subject, context (client, location and audience) and realisation are crucial to the process.
This module introduces students to independent research project development and structures.
It will cover academic and practice research and the relationship between the two, how each area can inform, develop and progress the other. The module will enable students to develop either an extended individual design practice project, or a dissertation (Extended Essay) on contemporary or historical developments in design and communication culture the following term.
Students will be expected to engage with independent and critical thinking and advance their research skills.
Our staff bring with them a broad range of experience, from our expert academic staff to our highly qualified technicians and practising professionals. Together they support, develop, challenge and inspire you throughout your studies.
We use a variety of teaching methods including practical and technical workshops, performance platforms, seminars, lectures and group projects.
For a student studying full time, each academic year of the programme will comprise 1200 learning hours which include both direct contact hours and private study hours. The precise breakdown of hours will be subject dependent and will vary according to modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
Methods of assessment will vary according to subject specialism and individual modules. Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
As a Spatial and Interior Design student at Kent, you’ll be part of an inclusive and supportive creative studio culture, working alongside your peers, industry professionals and academics, building your future network. Our studio mirrors the industry environment you’ll work in, easing your transition from student to professional.
Spatial and interior design is a rapidly growing field and a field of growing importance in all industries. The ability to conceptualise and reimagine spaces, vital to interior design, is also key in related careers such as experience and events management. You could be working in a gallery or contributing to an Olympic opening ceremony, whatever your ambitions, this course gives you the skills to build a career in an exciting field where ideas take shape.
Our Spatial and Interior Design programme is the first step to wherever you want to go.
Our Careers and Employability team offer a comprehensive programme of workshops, alumni talks and careers events to help you succeed when you graduate.
The 2024/25 annual tuition fees for this course are:
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
For students continuing on this programme, fees will increase year on year by no more than RPI + 3% in each academic year of study except where regulated.*
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
Fees for undergraduate students are £1,850.
Fees for undergraduate students are £1,385.
Students studying abroad for less than one academic year will pay full fees according to their fee status.
Find out more about accommodation and living costs, plus general additional costs that you may pay when studying at Kent.
Kent offers generous financial support schemes to assist eligible undergraduate students during their studies. See our funding page for more details.
At Kent we recognise, encourage and reward excellence. We have created the Kent Scholarship for Academic Excellence.
The scholarship will be awarded to any applicant who achieves a minimum of A*AA over three A levels, or the equivalent qualifications (including BTEC and IB) as specified on our scholarships pages.
We have a range of subject-specific awards and scholarships for academic, sporting and musical achievement.
This gallery showcases some of the work produced by our Spatial and Interior Design students.
Next steps
If you are from the UK or Ireland, you must apply for this course through UCAS. If you are not from the UK or Ireland, you can apply through UCAS or directly on our website if you have never used UCAS and you do not intend to use UCAS in the future.
We welcome applications from students all around the world with a wide range of international qualifications.
Student life
Kent is ranked top 50 in the The Complete University Guide 2023 and The Times Good University Guide 2023.
Kent Sport
Kent has risen 11 places in THE’s REF 2021 ranking, confirming us as a leading research university.
Accommodation