The Master of Interior Architecture and Retail Design programme is organised as the following:

70% of the programme is structured to meet the national qualifications to become an Interior Architect. Students can choose to continue on the Interior Architecture curriculum path or take the Retail Design specialisation courses that constitute 30% of the programme.

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The specialisation Retail Design is one of the most challenging and complex areas of interior architecture. The Retail Design course at the Piet Zwart Institute is also unique in the Netherlands. The course was developed in the mid-nineties as a direct  response to the demand for more practical and market focused retail designers.

Retail Design is complex as the designer needs to have insight in the client, the consumer and the environment with their technological, ecological and social-cultural aspects and they must have insight in the commercial aspects of the retail field.

Retail Design is challenging as the developments within retail are changing at a quick pace. The life cycle of a retail interior is steadily decreasing due to trends in fashion and technological and ecological developments. And the consumer is also changing as they are no longer product buyers but they have become people with desires, feelings and expectations. They want an experience and this experience has become the primary issue in the world of retail. And it is the retail designers’ task to relate to and to develop this experience through visual, spatial and communicative expression. Communication is the force underlying and surrounding the retail space.

Therefore Retail Design is much more than designing or/and decorating a space. The design process  starts with an analysis of the brand identity of the client and ends when delivery is finished.

During the 2-year program students will learn that: “The contemporary Retail Business does not only ask for specific knowledge and skills ( branding, marketing, communication , graphics etc) but especially for the ability to integrate critical information (Research) from different disciplines into a convincing proposal (The Big Idea) and to be able to visualize this Big Idea into a  shop environment (Concept) and to transform this concept into a 3D Design (The Design) which has its own identity and your personal handwriting (Presentation/ Communication).”