MA in Interior Design

In this year long course (ID studio 1 and 2), students explore and test conceptual thinking, design process and design tools required to develop proposals for inhabited spaces. Students are encouraged and expected to challenge themselves by investigating new ways of thinking and designing. In this second semester, a final brief will require students to push their designs further in terms of detail, materiality, structure and assembly. Using either the school’s 3D workshop or printing facilities, or affiliated fab lab resources, students will fabricate and assemble a large scale model or prototype of an extract of their proposal as a means to test and implement their design first-hand.

In this year long course, a practical approach is applied to each phase of the interior design project, from inception to completion. Working through the 4 principal stages of a scheme (feasibility and analysis; sketch proposal; detailed design; construction phase) students are led to identify, in sequence, the specific objectives, challenges and communication requirements relating to each phase. In the first semester, using the team project as an application, students consider the professional feasibility of an idea and the implications behind a sketch proposal: estimation of timeframes of each part within the whole project, measurements, budget comparisons, contract and constructions costs, clarity and coherence of a scheme with respects to client requirements and programmatic constraints. In the second semester, students follow the elaboration and perfecting of a project through the detailed design process, as well as the rigour and attention required to carry a project through to completion, addressing construction team management skills and professional ethics. Throughout the duration of the course and following each phase of the design process students are encouraged to apply the technical proficiency they have acquired in the fall CAD course to develop and explore new concepts, methods and ideas to illustrate and present each stage: concept boards, fast scale models, graphics, material samples and mock-ups. Oral presentation skills to accompany their visual communication are the focus of continuous feedback for improvement.

In the first semester, students work in teams on either a residential or a commercial space. They select an existing space in Paris and build the project on a proposed transformation of this space. This is a two-credit course because the majority of the work is done by students outside direct classroom instruction time. Students work in teams and meet with their instructor for 2 hours per week to review progress, receive feedback and technical conceptual suggestions for moving the project to completion. A peer review and critique with all student teams is organized at the end of weeks 5, 10, and 15. For the final critique after week 15 several faculty and at least one outside professional are also part of the jury that sets the grade.

This course is meant to enable students to develop and perfect the required practical skills to describe and represent space. It is dedicated principally to 2D technical drawing (measures, plan, section, views, axonometric projections, detail and construction drawings) using CAD software programs Adobe Creative Suites, AutoCAD and SketchUP, as needed for most projects. Students will also be given the opportunity to explore 3D visualization techniques and rendering tools so as to perfect their project communication skills. PCA has a license for all its students, faculty and staff to use lynda.com, an online tutorial for all software programs required for art and design.

The course will analyze and compare 20th and 21st century architectures and interiors in Japan, Scandinavia, North America, South America, and the Mediterranean. Students will work towards situating design and architecture practices within larger intellectual and historical frameworks by exploring the indissoluble connections linking ideas and products of human culture. Students will acquire the critical methodologies applicable to design and architecture to think more systematically about the evolution of architecture and interiors over time.

Understanding users’ needs, desires and constraints is key to creating any successful system or artefact, such as art installations, games, apps, websites, products, services, etc. Design research methods can be used to understand stakeholder needs, create stakeholder empathy in the creative team, identify opportunities, move beyond obvious solutions, enhance concepts, test and evaluate ideas and guide an individual or a  team from the beginning through final concept evaluation using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Questionnaire design, participant observation, in-context interviews, self-documentation, participatory design, heuristic analysis, product ethnography and interactive testing using small number statistics are just some of the techniques used to improve concept development and objectively evaluate one concept or design idea over another. We’ll learn how to formulate research topics, use human factors data, gather ethical ethnographic data, use qualitative and quantitative research techniques, analyze the research results and present the information in ways that are appropriate to each stage of the creative process.

You may select electives from the course offerings below.

In this year long course (ID studio 1 and 2), students explore and test conceptual thinking, design process and design tools required to develop proposals for inhabited spaces. Students are encouraged and expected to challenge themselves by investigating new ways of thinking and designing. In this second semester, a final brief will require students to push their designs further in terms of detail, materiality, structure and assembly. Using either the school’s 3D workshop or printing facilities, or affiliated fab lab resources, students will fabricate and assemble a large scale model or prototype of an extract of their proposal as a means to test and implement their design first-hand.

In this year long course, a practical approach is applied to each phase of the interior design project, from inception to completion. Working through the 4 principal stages of a scheme (feasibility and analysis; sketch proposal; detailed design; construction phase) students are led to identify, in sequence, the specific objectives, challenges and communication requirements relating to each phase. In the first semester, using the team project as an application, students consider the professional feasibility of an idea and the implications behind a sketch proposal: estimation of timeframes of each part within the whole project, measurements, budget comparisons, contract and constructions costs, clarity and coherence of a scheme with respects to client requirements and programmatic constraints. In the second semester, students follow the elaboration and perfecting of a project through the detailed design process, as well as the rigour and attention required to carry a project through to completion, addressing construction team management skills and professional ethics. Throughout the duration of the course and following each phase of the design process students are encouraged to apply the technical proficiency they have acquired in the fall CAD course to develop and explore new concepts, methods and ideas to illustrate and present each stage: concept boards, fast scale models, graphics, material samples and mock-ups. Oral presentation skills to accompany their visual communication are the focus of continuous feedback for improvement.

A semester-long project will be conducted individually to give students the opportunity to apply all the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge gathered during the first semester to either a residential or a commercial space. The project will be accompanied by a written thesis summarizing the research (historical, social, contextual and technical) in which the project is grounded and comprising a budget and timeline. This is a two-credit course because the majority of the work is done by students outside direct classroom instruction time. Students meet with their instructor for 2 hours per week to review progress, receive feedback and technical and conceptual suggestions for moving the project to completion. A peer review and critique with all student teams is organized at the end of weeks 5, 10, and 15. For the final critique after week 15 several faculty and outside professionals are also part of the jury that sets the grade.

Professionals from the Parisian art and design world will come in to introduce students to their professional practice and engage them in practical exercises preparing them for the job market. Instructors will be drawn from a broad range of fields: photographers and videographers; designer and architects; galleries, museums, auction houses and private collections; art fairs and international exhibitions; art dealers; curators; historians; journalists and iconographers; artists; magazine editors; I.P. and licensing lawyers, etc.

Students will document the research they conduct on the theme of their final project, as well as the research they have done on the cost and means of production of their project. Some of the criteria for evaluating the thesis will be the extent to which the student’s work is situated in a historic and cultural context, the quality of the student’s research, and the appropriate use of documentation, artifacts, and the learning resources available to them in Paris.

You may select electives from the course offerings below.