Craft & Material Practices (Extended Degree)

UCAS code: 69K5

Here's what Arts University Plymouth says about its Craft & Material Practices (Extended Degree) course.

If you want to pursue a creative degree at Arts University Plymouth but feel you have yet to acquire the experience and range of skills necessary, our Extended BA programme will prepare you for entry to one of our BA (Hons) undergraduate courses.

What is Extended BA? Our Extended BA (Hons) Degrees offers a unique four-year route for students aiming to delve into the diverse realm of art, design, and media. This programme provides an initial exploratory year, where you'll cultivate insight into various creative skills and approaches, laying a robust foundation before advancing to a specialised degree of your choice. Whether you're returning to education after a hiatus or entering without formal qualifications, our Extended BA equips you with the requisite skills, knowledge, and experience to secure a place in our full undergraduate program.

Our Intensive Extended Degree program is a dynamic blend of lectures, workshops, and practical studio sessions designed to challenge and inspire. Our diverse student body spans from fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds to seasoned creatives in their seventies, fostering a rich collaborative environment. With the freedom to take risks and experiment, you'll develop a diverse skill set through hands-on experimentation with materials, processes, and methodologies. This transformative journey hones critical skills essential for degree-level study, expanding your proficiency in drawing, visual research, contextual studies, digital imaging, and design methods. Gain invaluable experience in a supportive atmosphere that encourages creativity, collaboration, and innovation.

Why Choose BA (Hons) Craft & Material Practices? With almost 150,000 people employed in the UK’s craft industry, skilled craftspeople are putting the country on the map for original, forward-thinking contemporary design. Experimentation and innovation are driving a new wave of craftspeople to explore original directions, often looking to develop methods in which we can live harmoniously within natural and fabricated environments while supporting a healthy ecosystem.

Whilst studying this course, you’ll have access to our spacious Materials Lab which includes specialist facilities for ceramics, glass, metal, and wood, encouraging you to explore traditional making alongside the rapid digital prototyping facilities in our Fab Lab, giving you the opportunity to reinvent craft for the 21st century. However, learning isn’t limited to our design studios and workshops – you will meet some of the UK’s most inventive and entrepreneurial contemporary makers and thinkers through studio visits, demonstrations, and presentations.

You’ll discover an array of material practices, including glassblowing and kiln-formed glass, ceramics, metals in various scales, woodworking, concrete, plastics, and textiles in our state-of-the-art workshops.

You’ll expand your critical approach while honing research and analytical skills. Our programmes foster diversity in both thought and practice, emphasising practical applications alongside reflective, analytical writing.

You’ll study specialist in: Ceramics techniques; throwing, slip casting, slab-building, coiling, glazing, and raku firing. Glass work; hot glass making, kiln-formed glass, coldworking, and lampworking. Metal work; casting, welding, and grinding. Wood-working; woodturning, joinery, and CNC routing. In the Fab Lab you will experience laser cutting, CNC milling, and 3D printing.

Through the use of these traditional materials, as well as explorations in smart and adaptive materials, you’ll develop new modes of creative authorship through experimentation, research, and invention.

On successful completion of your Extended Degree year, you will be guaranteed a place on one of our full undergraduate BA (Hons) programmes. Many of our past students have gone on to achieve high grades in their degrees, including a large number with First Class Honours.

The first year of an Extended Degree is not a qualification in its own right, but when you successfully complete it you are guaranteed a place on our full undergraduate programme.

You’ll develop confidence in your use of drawing, visual research, contextual studies, digital imaging and design methods, and you’ll have the chance to experiment with a range of materials, equipment, processes and software.

As the year goes by you’ll specialise in your chosen undergraduate subject (illustration, graphic design, fine art, etc.), helping you to become a confident, independent and creative artist, designer or maker.