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.

The Professional Certificate in Narrative Environments is the first course in Ireland combining:
– narrative theory
– spatial design
– audience experience
– cultural interpretation
– immersive digital, hybrid and physical environments

8 weeks, Mondays 6-9pm

25 Jan – 22 Mar

Dates:

January 25
Note: Break of 1 week due to St.Brigid’s Day bank holiday
February 8,15, 22
March 1, 8, 15, 22

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.

Photo by Richie Stokes

Claire Healy

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.