Facilities

Studio and workshop practice is supported with an extensive range of professional and industry standard materials and processes, media and IT. You will be working with highly qualified and enthusiastic academic staff all of whom are active as practicing designers and researchers . Additionally you will be supported by experienced and qualified technical demonstrators in our workshops and studios. The skills that you will acquire on our Product Design course are considered by many employers in the creative industries as being indispensable for a successful working future in the modern global economy. You will be creating innovative new products for manufacture in a wide range of the creative industries, often working collaboratively on exciting design commissions with our partner/employer network, a process that narrows the gap between an educational and professional experience.

In recent years we have targeted significant investment in the studio and workshop facilities on the programme. The first thing you need to know is that they are all situated in one dedicated design centre.

Link to: 360 Degree Tour of Workshops

The Design Lab is our dedicated first year base room, the way the room is equipped and formatted signifies our commitment to students being able to work across the digital and analogue skills bases (CAD/CAM and traditional sketching and modelling).

The Design Lab is also open 24 hours, we have negotiated this provision to ensure that our students who have increasingly busy lives juggling academic, domestic and work commitments, have the facilities they need when they want them. The lab is equipped with high spec PC’s loaded with all of the software we use on the programme.

Link to: 360 Tour of Design Laboratory

The attic studio space accommodates the bases for year two and three, this large studio is an ideal space for students to work as a group or individually in a classic design studio environment. We have recently invested in extra computers for this space in recognition of the fact that todays design student needs to work across the digital and traditional skills at the same time in the same spaces.

On the Product Design programme we are very proud of our IT facilities, for an average group of 120 students across three years we currently have 90 dedicated high spec PC’s spread across two dedicated IT suites and two multidisciplinary studio spaces.

The software we use on the programme is taught at level one and then reinforced in each of the module building to the final year where students use a range of skills to build convincing arguments for their design proposals. Currently we use Solidworks as our main 3D CAD software supplemented by Autodesk Maya, and for all of the digital presentations we use the Adobe Creative Suite of programmes.

Alongside our more traditional making facilities comprising: wood working, engineering equipment and machinery (casting , welding, machining), soft modelling and a new spray finishing facility. We have a range of computer controlled machinery: large bed CNC router (1200 x 1000) small multi axis router, a CNC lathe and a large wall saw. In all of these facilities students are supported by staff to produce high quality 3D outputs to support and communicate their design work.

A modern Product Design facility would not be complete without a range of rapid prototyping machinery to enable students to create complex prototypes direct from their 3D CAD models.

On the Product Design programme we have invested heavily in this area to ensure we have the facilities which match students expectations, meet the needs they will have in their design projects and mirror the technologies being used in the global manufacturing sector. At present we have: A Zcorp 3D printer (using fused powder), A HP 3D printer (using fused plastic) and a large bed laser cutter. Alongside this we have a range of 2D prototyping equipment consisting of large format printers, which print and cut on paper, textiles and vinyl.