Design: Health and Wellbeing MA

Facts about Design: Health and Wellbeing

Qualification	MA
Duration	Full time: 1 year Part time: 2 years
Attendance	Full time: Two days per week Part time: To be confirmed
Assessment	Design thinking skills workshops; practical design projects and investigations; masters project report documents; masters project and exhibition.
Course structure

Choose Kingston's Design: Health and Wellbeing MA

This course provides a rare and rewarding opportunity for qualified designers (industrial, product and furniture, interior, fashion, architecture, landscape, graphic, communication etc) and other professionals with relevant backgrounds to access and improve our holistic experience of healthcare design.

It promotes design and design thinking as an agent of innovation and change, placing user experience and human-centred need at the heart of an inclusive design agenda. Research is developed through practical and strategic design in response to real-life scenarios involving key stakeholders. Links to specialist institutions offer unique insight into real-world problems.

What will you study?

You will study how to make a real difference in the lives of people facing particular health and wellbeing needs. These needs cover a multitude of different circumstances including an ageing population, inclusive design, social care, implementing change management, rethinking healthcare systems, responding to social challenges and experience design.

Introductory workshops equip students with key techniques to enable design progress within health and wellbeing contexts. Direct access to a diverse group of health practitioners and academics and exposure to their specialist realms is facilitated.

Continual professional development (CPD) workshops undertaken with industry practitioners on subjects such as designing for dementia, colour and sensory design for the visually impaired provide typical specialist focus.

Internships are available through assisted application to organizations leading the field in healthcare architecture and design.

These unique opportunities help students to define and expand their individual subject interest and masters study agenda. All design investigations culminate in a curated public exhibition at Tent London, during London Design Week.

Research areas

Many of the staff in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture are research active. This ensures they are in touch with the latest thinking and bring best practice to your studies.
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Course structure

Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.

Available modules

Process
Process

Process explores interdisciplinary design processes pertinent to different design disciplines. A number of diverse starting points are offered to stimulate ideas and enquiry through practical design processes, and through a programme of lecture-based teaching sessions. A consciousness of cognitive design process is simultaneously supported. The focus is explicitly upon design process and the generation of design ideas rather than the realisation of polished outcomes. The spirit of interdisciplinary learning promotes expanded outlook.
Focus
Focus

Focus discusses interdisciplinary design foci that are pertinent to diverse design disciplines. Typically a single area of design focus is explored in greater detail through a practical design project(s). Where possible, live projects with collaborating parties are undertaken. For Health and Wellbeing MAstudents, continual professional development (CPD) workshops with industry practitioners on subjects such as designing for dementia, colour and sensory design for the visually impaired provide a specialist focus.
Context I: Health and Wellbeing
Context I: Health and Wellbeing

This module equips students with key skills necessary to make a meaningful design contribution within the broad range of health and wellbeing contexts. Introductory workshops introduce techniques including experience flow and meaning mapping, social networking and community interviews, user testing and feedback. Workshops are set within a particular reference context to illustrate relevance and appropriateness.
Context II: Health and Wellbeing
Context II: Health and Wellbeing

This module extends and builds upon the learning experience gained in Context I: Health and Wellbeing, with a view to formulating a comprehensive masters project proposal upon completion. It continues to practise and develop the workshop skills introduced in Context I, further developing design projects already commenced or engaging with new project scenarios as appropriate. Internships are available through assisted application to organisations leading the field in healthcare architecture and design. These excellent networking opportunities help students to define and expand their individual subject interest and masters study agenda.
Masters Project and Exhibition
Masters Project and Exhibition

This module allows students to realise a self-initiated, in-depth practical design investigation in line with their individual interest and as outlined in their Context II masters project proposal. It is the culmination of the MA experience and the most ambitious expression of individual motivation, creativity and ability to deliver.

A finished portfolio of work covering the previous modules completed within the MA is also submitted. A curated exhibition of masters projects is presented, most recently at Tent London as part of the London Design Festival.