Spring project

The spring term design project used to be an individual project which ran over the entire term. In 2019, Marc Masen introduced a more efficient and intense alternative which became known as Design Week.

In the second year of the Mechanical Engineering degree, all teaching comes to a halt for one week in the middle of the Spring term. There are no lectures, tutorials, labs; it's an intensive week of discovery through engineering design. 

Design Week is a project-based block delivery which is meant to be a close simulation of 'real-life' design practice. The students work in groups of 4 and are given a vague brief to develop a conceptual design of a product over a 5 day period. They are given total freedom in terms of access to resources, but engineering justification must be utilised to validate their final concept design. Each group is assigned a Design Tutor (member of staff) whose role is to question and challenge their design as well as to give advice during the week.

During the week, the students are expected to record their design journey, discover knowledge outside of the curriculum, meet daily deadlines and present the final design to engineering experts. Apart from allowing students to use their technical knowledge and skills, Design Week also fosters teamwork and communication. At the end of the week the students present their product design to the department at a Poster Exhibition.

Collaboration with Brunel University London

In 2025 and 2026, one of the projects was a migraine relief headband and a sleep apnea nasal device respectively. These ideas came from Bioscience students at Brunel University London as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration. Brunel students acted as real clients visiting Imperial during Design Week. As part of the collaboration, Imperial students were later invited to the Brunel campus to present their designs.

From concept to embodiment to reality

Design weeks projects from 2024 and 2025 have been continued the following academic year as DMT projects. The embodied concepts were used to jumpstart the design process. In 2024 and 2025 the projects were a paintbrush cleaner and a drop tower impact tester respectively.

The projects in Design Week are diverse and are inspired by many fields such as aerospace, sports, manufacturing, medicine, fashion, tourism, vehicles, finance, sustainability, food, etc.

If you have an idea for a Design Week project, suggest it here: Design Week 2027 project ideas – Fill in form