Polytechnic design school head Caroline Terpstra said the new programmes were not in response to the closure of the university's design school.
''We'd been talking about these new programmes for about three years,'' she said.
''The demand has come from our own interactions with current students, and with inquiries. It's about meeting that demand.''
Although the university cited inadequate student numbers as a primary reason for shutting its design programme, Mrs Terpstra was confident about demand for the polytech's new programmes.
''We're not concerned there won't be enough students to run programmes,'' she said.
The four new postgraduate programmes - a postgraduate certificate, a postgraduate diploma, an honour's bachelor's degree, and a master of design - would be created in 2016, bringing the design school's total programme offerings up to 15.
All new programmes would expand on existing teaching, Mrs Terpstra said, and would ''give [students] more options in terms of how they design their own pathway''.
The new programmes come as the polytechnic's design programme prepares to work more collaboratively with its art school.
''There is some content we can share, and resources we can share, and certain facilities we can share,'' Mrs Terpstra said.
''We're doing some of that already,'' Mrs Terpstra said.
The new programmes were also designed to help students ''work in a more interdisciplinary way''.
That might mean anything from working with other design disciplines to working with the art school, marketing or IT, she said.
Mrs Terpstra expected some new staff would be hired in forming the new design programmes, but was not sure how many.
There were now just over 20 full-time employees (FTEs).
''That comes down to the numbers [of students who enrol in the programme],'' she said.
She did not rule out the possibility some former Otago design staff might move over to the polytechnic.
''I imagine, yeah, there might be staff that choose to apply for those positions,'' she said.
Almost all of the university's academic design staff will be made redundant in the impending departmental closure.
Otago design students previously said the university told them two polytechnic design staff might be enlisted to teach out the remainder of students' design degrees at the university, but Mrs Terpstra said she was not aware of such a plan.
''We're looking at common content areas [between the university and polytechnic's design programmes] at this stage,'' she said.
''If we're called on to help support the delivery of papers that the university are currently offering, that's the area we're exploring together.''
That might mean offering courses ''in conjunction with the university'' or that polytechnic and university students ''are able to be together for some content'', but university students would remain at the university and graduate with an Otago diploma.
Mrs Terpstra was also willing to entertain the idea some university design students might shift to the polytechnic's programme, but said that was by no means part of the plan in creating the programmes.
''We're definitely happy to look at any applications,'' she said.
''We're obviously able to take students in.''
But Otago design student representative Zac Newton was sceptical any university students would switch over to the programme.
''I don't think it'll have any impact at all,'' he said.
''If students wanted to go to the polytech, they would've gone to the polytech, anyway.''
