22 Jan 2027
NCAD
5 ECT
TBC
8 weeks
€600
The Professional Certificate in Narrative Environment equips participants with skills in spatial storytelling, exhibition design, experiential curation, and the design of immersive environments that communicate meaning through place and object.
The ability to design and interpret environments that convey complex narratives in museums, galleries, public spaces, retail, hospitality, heritage sites, and digital-physical intersections is a growing area of professional demand as institutions and organisations seek to deepen audience engagement and create meaningful, memorable experiences.
Participants develop competencies in using a variety of media to map, curate, and interpret creative spaces; to tell stories through spatial design; and to engage with the cultural contexts that frame the practices of creating environments and built spaces. These skills support careers in exhibition design, curation, spatial brand communication, cultural heritage interpretation, set design, and experiential marketing all of which are identified growth areas nationally and internationally.
The programme is targeted at designers, artists, curators, architects, set designers, exhibition makers, and cultural producers working in or seeking to enter the spatial narrative and experiential design space.
It also attracts professionals from heritage, tourism, retail, and branding who seek to deepen their creative spatial communication skills.
The programme is transversal, spanning fine art, design, architecture, heritage, and cultural industries.
There is strong and growing national demand for spatial narrative and experience design skills across Ireland’s cultural, heritage, tourism, and creative industries sectors.
The National Cultural Institutions, the Office of Public Works, and a growing number of visitor experience and museum developments across Dublin and nationally are creating ongoing demand for practitioners with these competencies.
The programme draws participants from across Ireland, supported by blended delivery options, and benefits from the broader national momentum around cultural tourism investment and visitor experience development.
Graduates of this programme are equipped to design the communicative physical, digital and hybrid environments through which citizens navigate complex information and services, making them directly employable across the public sector transformation agenda the Plan describes.
The Better Public Services Transformation 2030 Strategy commits to placing the citizen at the centre of service design, embedding design thinking across public service reform and building Ireland’s capacity for human-centred service delivery. This programme develops the spatial, experiential and narrative design competencies that make that ambition possible.
The Digital Creative Industries Roadmap 2024 to 2026 identifies visual communications and interaction design as strategic priority areas within Ireland’s commercial design sector, committing to skills development investment across these disciplines. Graduates of this programme contribute to both the public sector transformation agenda and the commercial design economy, applying narrative environment competencies across exhibition, brand, public space and digital experience contexts.
The curriculum directly engages with industry need for narrative and spatial design competencies, reflecting conversations with cultural institutions, heritage bodies, and the events and experience design sector.
The programme’s delivery model incorporating fieldwork, practical spatial projects, and industry engagement ensures ongoing alignment with professional practice.
As a creative director, experiential spatial designer, and strategist, I provide cultural and creative leadership on multidisciplinary teams across:
– Museums, Exhibition Design and Visitor Experiences
– Cultural Strategy, Curation and Programming
– Placemaking and Urban Development
– Immersive Theatre and Set Design
– Festivals, Pop-ups and Events
– Innovation and Brand Strategy
– Futures and Worldbuilding
My time is balanced between my design practice Fadó Fadó, independent consultancy work and teaching at Central Saint Martins on MA Narrative Environments [Spatial Practices Programme]. I also serve as a Director on the Board of the Irish Architecture Foundation.
My research interest is in the area where music and narrative environments meet and I’m very interested in continuing to develop work in this space.
There is a fee of €600 for this programme.
100% payment is required upfront at registration.
Apply via NCAD (applications open in September 2026)
Programme Contact
CFA coordinator Joanna Crawley crawleyj@staff.ncad.ie
Admissions Contact
postgraduate@ncad.ie
01 636 4200
