Interior Architecture

Interior architecture occupies the space between architecture and interior design, engaging with the structural, spatial, and experiential dimensions of interior environments rather than purely their decoration or furnishing. Interior architects work with existing buildings as much as with new construction, transforming spaces through interventions that respond to the building's character, the client's needs, and the experience of the people who will inhabit the result. The discipline draws on architectural history and theory, spatial design, environmental psychology, materials knowledge, and building technology, and it requires the ability to move between imaginative spatial thinking and precise technical realisation.

At the University of Brighton, this three-year, full-time programme includes a foundation year, a sandwich placement year, and work placement experience, providing a highly structured pathway from foundational creative skills through to professional practice. The foundation year builds your drawing, modelling, and design thinking capacities before you enter the main degree. From the first year of the BA, studio projects place you in progressively complex design scenarios, developing your ability to research a site and brief, generate and test design ideas, produce technical drawings and models, and communicate your thinking convincingly.

You will study the history and theory of interior and architectural space, sustainable design principles, lighting, materials, and the practical dimensions of construction detailing and project management.

The sandwich placement year and work placements give you direct experience of how interior architecture and design operate as professional practices, which is one of the most effective forms of learning available in a discipline this dependent on real-world context.

Graduates work in interior architecture and design practices, retail and hospitality design, property development, set design, exhibition design, and related fields. Brighton's creative economy and its connections to London provide good access to employers during your studies. Many graduates also go on to postgraduate study in architecture, spatial design, or related disciplines, and some progress toward RIBA qualification with further study.