Welcome to the Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design (MIARD) at the Piet Zwart Institute – an international postgraduate programme that is part of the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Our students are trained to excel in the challenges they face as the next generation of designers. Projects are researched in a dynamic atelier setting with highly equipped facilities working together with a diverse faculty of established architects, interior architects, designers, scholars and other specialists. Entrepreneurial practice and networking is encouraged throughout the programme to support and launch a student’s design career. Intrinsic to this Masters is a specialisation in Retail Design.

At MIARD, we view the production of the interior as a “multidisciplinary” practice. Our programme is motivated by a design-research methodology that views interior architecture as an applied “artistic synthesis.” We investigate making as a research and design process by mixing parameters, such as strategies and systems, techniques and tools, materials and technology, as well as other relevant and unexpected programmatic and cultural issues. As the practice of interior architecture continues to mature, we examine its performance and potential in the build environment at various scales and conditions to shape and advance the future of cities, neighborhoods, buildings and their spaces, and for the communities and people that live in them.

Based in Rotterdam, a dynamic European capital of architecture and design, we plan projects directly with and for the city and local affiliations, as well as actively participate at well-known international design platforms. We offer public events in the form of lectures, exhibitions, field excursions, and interdisciplinary workshops.  Our students have access to extensive university and outside resources, fostering collaborative opportunities with specialists from peripheral disciplines.