Sustainable Design MA
Why choose this course?
Are you a designer, creative worker or other specialist who wants to direct your practice towards progressive sustainability and social agendas?
This Sustainable Design MA course focuses on the value of design as a vehicle for addressing social and ecological concerns in both developed and developing world settings. It will equip you with the knowledge, capabilities and confidence to challenge the status quo, by applying design thinking to design-led interventions for a sustainable future.
See what we get up to on the course on Instagram @ma_sustainable_design_kingston.
| Mode | Duration | Attendance | Start date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full time | 1 year | 2 days a week | September 2020 |
| Full time | 2 years including professional placement | 2 days a week, plus placement year | September 2020 |
| Part time | 2 years | Contact the course leader for details | September 2020 |
Stand-alone module: Design for Social Innovation.
| Location | Kingston School of Art, Knights Park |
2020/21 entry
If you are planning to join this course in the academic year 2020/21 (i.e. between August 2020 and July 2021), please view the information about changes to courses for 2020/21 due to Covid-19.
Continuing students
Students who are continuing their studies with Kingston University in 2020/21 should refer to their Course Handbook for information about specific changes that have been, or may be, made to their course or modules being delivered in 2020/21. Course Handbooks are located within the Canvas Course page.
Reasons to choose Kingston
- We were ranked No. 1 in the UK for design and crafts* (Guardian University Guide league tables 2020)
- The overarching course philosophy, with an emphasis on research, methodology and design thinking, allows you to explore your own personal concerns through focused study in sustainable design.
- The course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study and practice of sustainable design, by recruiting students from varied creative and design backgrounds and beyond.
* covers graphic design, interior design, illustration, animation and product and furniture design.
Taster session
Meet the course team
If you'd like to find out more about this course, why not attend our next online Postgraduate Open Evening on Wednesday 1 July?
What you will study
This Sustainable Design MA is directed towards the goal of creating a more sustainable and equitable society. You will explore innovative and practical ways to help realise those visions, emphasising design, creativity, empathy, innovation and activism.
You'll be encouraged to think critically about the social and ecological agendas it addresses. The course is design-based, but not confined to design practice - it includes a significant amount of theoretical and contextual studies. You can choose to write a dissertation for the final major project.
This course is part of the Design School's Postgraduate Framework. The structure, shared with postgraduate students from other design courses, enables you to explore your individual specialist interests within an integrative learning environment.
Throughout the course, you'll understand the value and role of interdisciplinary methods and ways of working. The impact of thinking from related design subjects, on your own specialist study, is an important aspect of the identity and community of interdisciplinary practice at master's level in the Design School.
Design for Social Innovation can also be taken as a stand-alone module.
Modules
Optional placement year
Stand-alone module: Design for Social Innovation
Core modules
Design for Social Innovation
30 credits
Design for social innovation is the emerging mode of design practice and theory in which design thinking is applied to social and societal challenges. This module focuses on the development of design-based research skills and capabilities useful for responding to real-world challenges or so-called 'wicked problems'. Emphasis is placed on problem-finding and problem-setting, rather than simply seeking solutions to problems as they are currently expressed.
Designing Research
30 credits
The aim of the module is to give you understanding of the design research tools and methods that are available to you, to inform and support the development of your practical study, and to provide the basis of your further study on your course. Practical research methods are explored, with an emphasis on the development of creative and evidence-based approaches to experimentation, and critical reflection on practical design work.
Sustainable Design Principles, Perspectives and Practices
30 credits
This module explores key principles and perspectives that inform various practices of sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable design, in developed and developing world contexts. It examines the ways in which contemporary and emerging modes of design practice and theory relate to the sustainability agenda.
Creative Futures
30 credits
This module is based on the assumption that the best jobs/careers in the creative industries do not exist – they are invented from individual creative ambitions. The module explores how this can be approached in practical terms. The programme of study encourages you to develop a personal and critical approach to your future career, and how this can inform the development of your individual major project for the Major Project.
The Major Project
60 credits
The Major Project – the capstone project – consolidates the knowledge gained in earlier modules, and is informed by your prior learning within the Design School's postgraduate interdisciplinary framework and course-specific specialist study. You will extend your work on the course thus far in the form of a practical design proposal, defining and developing a substantive solution to an individually defined design-related problem. In so doing, you will demonstrate advanced understanding and application of contemporary design practice as it can be brought to bear on a specific challenge of sustainability.
Many postgraduate courses at Kingston University allow students to do a 12-month work placement as part of their course. The responsibility for finding the work placement is with the student; we cannot guarantee the work placement, just the opportunity to undertake it. As the work placement is an assessed part of the course, it is covered by a student's Tier 4 visa.
Read about our student Katie Sharman's work placement on our blog: she completed a ten-month placement as the Communications and Sustainability Coordinator at Hackney Herbal, a community-focused social enterprise.
Find out more about the postgraduate work placement scheme.
Optional modules
Professional Placement
120 credits
The Professional Placement module is a core module for those students following a masters programme that incorporates professional placement learning, following completion of 120 credits. It provides you with the opportunity to apply your knowledge and skills to an appropriate working environment, and to develop and enhance key employability skills and subject-specific professional skills in your chosen subject. You may wish to use the placement experience as a platform for your subsequent major project module, and would be expected to use it to help inform your decisions about future careers.
Design for Social Innovation
Design for social innovation is an emerging mode of design practice gaining popularity and interest within the design professions and more widely, for example in the public sector. Local authorities are increasingly looking to employ designers to redesign public services and to deliver their programmes more effectively.
There is therefore demand for training in design for social innovation. This is a distinguishing feature of the Sustainable Design MA, but there are designers and other practitioners who do not yet wish to embark on a full MA course. This module is for them.
The module will be based around a 'live' project brief, and include sessions with leading practitioners in the field.
"This module will be useful to designers and those who come from the world of frontline social impact services, who want to learn more about innovation and design - and to gain practical experience with which to develop." Mat Hunter (Chief design officer, Design Council)
About the stand-alone module
This is currently a course-specific module within the Sustainable Design MA. It is also available as a credit-bearing stand-alone module, whereby it can be taken without enrolling on the Sustainable Design MA (although the credits could be used subsequently for entry to the course). Students enrolled on the MA and stand-alone modules are part of the same module cohort, participate equally, and have the same module experience.
Sessions
Please note that this is an indicative list of sessions and is not intended as a definitive list.
- The role for design in social innovation
- Design process models (including the double diamond process)
- User-centred design research methods (such as personas, journey mapping, role playing, user diaries)
- Designing your design brief
- Research ethics in social innovation
- Design studio visit(s)
Dates
This is an 11-week module, delivered on Thursdays from 24 September to 10 December 2020.
- Nine full teaching days (10.30am - 1.00pm, 2.00pm - 4.30pm)
- One self-directed project day
- One individual tutorial to support development of work for submission for assessment
- Project hand-in date: 10 December 2020
Apply or enquire
How to apply for the stand-alone module.
Please email Paul Micklethwaite with any enquiries about this stand-alone module.
p.micklethwaite@kingston.ac.uk
The information above reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. Updates may be made on an annual basis and revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year. The regulations governing this course are available on our website. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, this may not be offered.
Student work
Make It Better Social Club
Sharing little things we do in our daily lives to try and live more sustainably, by Emma Friedlander-Collins
Student work
Sense the World
Using sensory design to nurture intimacy with the natural world, and cultivate a pro-sustainability attitude, by Tzu-Yun Liu
Co-design Toolkit
Used during workshops to visualise the co-design process and foster active contribution from participants, by Ying-An Chen
The Purpose Journal
A zine about meaning-making, social and environmental sustainability, community, lifestyle and business, by Katie Sharman
Service Design Toolkit for Collaborative Consumption of Children's Products
By Maria Fernandez Marinovic
Student work
How to embed social innovation and sustainability in a makerspace
By Giuliana Gheza
Cradle to Grave, Grave to Cradle
Sustainability in human end-of-life practices, by Burcu Turkay
Entry requirements
Teaching and assessment
Design project work, live projects, research project folders, 5,000-word creative essay, and a major design research project.
Who teaches this course?
You will be taught by leading academics and practitioners in sustainable design, social design, social innovation, participatory design, strategic design, service design, design-led innovation, and related topics.
This course is delivered by Kingston School of Art, which has its roots in the studio-based approach of Britain's art school system (the original School of Art was founded in the 1890s).
Today, for most courses, learning still takes place in our specialist studios, each subject area having its own fully-equipped studio, where you take part in classes, tutorials and critical reviews with fellow students. This strong studio culture also ensures regular interaction between students and tutors.
For non studio-based courses, learning takes place in classroom-based seminars, tutorials and lectures, alongside site visits to museums, galleries, auction houses and other creative professional environments.
Our students are encouraged to engage closely with the diverse businesses that make London one of the most important centres for the creative industries. Our industry connections mean we provide unique study opportunities, such as:
- the chance to have your work seen by eminent members of your profession;
- 'live' projects, site visits and placements in prestigious companies or institutions; and
- project work and workshops with visiting lecturers and industry specialists.
Our excellent reputation means that industry leaders regularly visit our student shows to see the best of the new talent.
Postgraduate students may also contribute to the teaching of seminars under the supervision of the module leader.
Fees for this course
Home and European Union 2020/21
- MA full time £10,200
- MA part time £5,610
Overseas (not EU) 2020/21
- MA full time £17,600
- MA part time £9,680
Fees for the optional placement year
If you choose to take a placement as part of this course, you will be invoiced for the placement fee in Year 2. Find out more about the postgraduate work placement scheme and the costs for the placement year.
Funding and bursaries
Kingston University offers a range of postgraduate scholarships, including:
If you are an international student, find out more about scholarships and bursaries.
We also offer the following discounts for Kingston University alumni:
Chevening scholarships
Students on this course have gained Chevening scholarships to support their studies. These awards go to outstanding candidates who are pursuing postgraduate course subjects which their home country considers to be important to its future development.
Facilities
Knights Park facilities
There is a wide range of facilities at our Knights Park campus, where this course is based. Kingston School of Art has recently completed an ambitious programme of investment, making significant improvements to our workshops and other resources, to ensure that students are exposed to as many creative pathways as possible.
The workshops and studios at Knights Park are open for creative exploration and allow opportunities for students and staff to collaborate on projects and share ideas, whether they are studying or researching. There are many adaptable studio and workshop spaces, active breakout spaces and stronger vertical and horizontal connections.
Our ground-breaking facilities include:
- 3D workshop, with ceramics, concrete, resin-casting, plastics, metalwork, woodwork and a bronze-casting foundry, as well as a Big Build space for Architecture, set design and large scale model making
- Animation and post production studios
- Digital Media workshop
- Fashion (knitting and sewing workshops), with digital and analogue facilities, plus a working dress archive which includes pieces from 1750 to the present day
- HackSpace (for collaborative, creative, solutions-focussed projects)
- Letterpress and printmaking workshop, with digital and analogue facilities, to experiment creatively
- Moving Image workshop, with studios, editing suite, and industry-standard equipment
- Photography workshop, including studios, colour, and black and white darkrooms, processing facilities
- All our facilities are open access, meaning you can use them whenever you want, and irrespective of what degree you're studying.
The University also has its own on-site galleries, including:
- Dorich House - the former studio home of the sculptor Dora Gordine and her husband the Hon. Richard Hare, a scholar of Russian art and literature. Now Grade II listed, the building was completed in 1936, to Gordine's design, and is an exceptional example of a modern studio house created by and for a female artist.
- Stanley Picker Gallery - one of the leading examples of a university gallery in the UK. Its public activities are dedicated to the research, commissioning and presentation of innovative new practice across the fields of art, design and architecture for general, academic and specialist audiences.
- project spaces at Knights Park campus, which you can book for the exhibition of large-scale work.
Resources in London
Kingston is just a 30 minute train journey away from central London. Here you can access world-famous museums and galleries.
New Stories showcase
Images from the MA Sustainable Design New Stories showcase held at The Rose Theatre Kingston (photos by Monika Jastrzebska). Work presented included projects on perishable jewellery, urban desire lines, the real value of our public spaces, activating the core economy through co-produced services, and establishing a fibreshed for London.
What our students and graduates say
Links with business and industry
The course incorporates collaboration with partners such as Design Council, Futerra, Active Minds.
You'll also benefit from:
- live projects with outside organisations;
- site visits;
- the option to undertake a major collaborative project with an external partner or your own employer.
Previous students have worked with many organisations involved in furthering societal sustainability, including:
- Design Council
- Futerra
- Helen Storey Foundation
- Innovation Unit
- National Trust
- Rose Theatre Kingston
- Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)
- Staywell (Age Concern Kingston upon Thames)
- Surrey County Council
- Sustrans
A distinctive advantage of this programme is connecting with people with a shared purpose - fellow students, tutors and teaching guests, and organisations you collaborate with on a project.
