The Bachelor of Architecture program at the Faculty of Architecture and Design offers students a professional degree that qualifies them to practice architecture. The program takes into consideration country and institutional requirements and characteristics such as recognition by the Ministry of Higher Education, registration in the Order of Engineers & Architects (Beirut or Tripoli).

ARCHIDES is blessed with having talented and enthusiastic faculty members of different age groups, gender, nationalities, and background creating the rich and experimental learning environment that forms the backbone of its culture. Almost 50% of its FTE is now formed of full-timers building the momentum of the Faculty through all its axes of teaching and learning, service to the Faculty, the university, and to the community, and scholarly activities.

The restructured curriculum into five main axes: Design, Engineering, History & Theory, and Material Science and Fabrication has gained shape with the demarcated differential stronghold in the decentralization of the design activities across all these axes. We are meeting our objectives in inverting the studio into lecture-oriented investigative design and intensifying the design activity in lecture courses through project-oriented exercises. Such an orientation in the education of our future architects along our attention to innovative solutions of our immediate social and environmental challenges form our DNA, identity, and distinctive model from the rest of the crowd.

Our good reputation as a solid and energetic program is growing amongst the academic circle across Lebanon. Our students are witnessing a visible transformation of important magnitude through their learning experience –culturally, intellectually, and professionally. They are exceptionally growing in the professional practice through the extensive internship program that our unique curriculum provides.

There is a high prospect of our first graduating students this year to be successfully competitive in the local and regional market, and are equally equipped to pursue their post professional academic career.

Faculty Vision

We aspire to become a nationally competitive and discovery driven Faculty that is distinguished by being contextually grounded, multidisciplinary, and collaborative, shepherding a culture of inquiry and entrepreneurship. Our graduates shall be responsible leaders that actively contribute to the advancement and well-being of their community and beyond.

Faculty Mission

ARCHIDES is a learner-centered and design-oriented Faculty. Our pedagogy is based on fundamental principles and is propelled by creative research in social and environmental challenges. Applied and design research and the culture of discovery are integrated in our undergraduate education. We are committed to graduate professional architects who are fully capable of continuous growth and successful practice in the fields of design, building construction, and design computation.

Faculty Core Values

Within this broad vision, ARCHIDES carry unwavering belief in the value of design as scholarship. Design as an a disciplinary skill- is approached as a creative and reflective process that is engaged in scholarly work and inquiry and that contributes to the advancement of knowledge – Architecture, Interior and Product Design being our field of expertize. ARCHIDES course of action in the search for excellence in teaching is set through differentiated learning whereby the Faculty provides a flexible delivery system that is tailored to the varied strength and outlook of the student body in the Faculty.

More specifically, ARCHIDES values:

• Excellent and accessible higher education. Rooted in the Bauhaus tradition, ARCHIDES motto is: every committed person can become a designer.
• Sustenance in life and design practice.
• Craftsmanship and material and technological innovation.
• Creative and pragmatic design practice propelled by the social and environmental challenges.
• Critical pedagogy and learning will to cross disciplinary boundaries.
• Active engagement with the community.
• Integration of research in undergraduate education.
• Network with the global research and professional communities for an effective build-up of ARCHIDES capacity to create value on the local and global scenes.

ARCHIDES is determined to build a learning environment that enables the development of a particular breed of architects and designers who carry a reflective and a critical stance of their own profession and who are capable to address emerging issues/problems by having access to the necessary most up-to-date set of theoretical and practical knowledge. In fact, ARCHIDES’ main goal is not limited to graduating employable architects in the local market, but it aims to graduate design/entrepreneurs that push the boundaries of the discipline as well.

Such an outlook is based on a conscious positioning of ARCHIDES graduates away from a dominant conventional design practice in the real estate sector to the boundaries of that practice where socially and environmentally driven innovations are required. To further reinforce such a positioning, the outlook of this Faculty is to reverse the trend of specialization and the decentralization of the production process into capital [business], designers [architecture], and technicians [technology] by building on what Azm University has to offer in other Faculties- consequently integrating into its curriculum courses from the Faculties of Business Administration, Media, and Engineering. Within such a program, we expect ARCHIDES graduates to innovate and to master all the necessary tools that will ensure that their innovations are context-based, technically sound, and commercially successful.

Undergraduate Programs

ARCHIDES offers the following undergraduate degree program:

• Bachelor of Architecture

Career Opportunities

ARCHIDES prepares students for careers in a wide variety of fields:

• Architecture design, environmental design, urban design, urban planning, and design management.

Foundation Year

Preceded by the University Preparatory [UP] Program where incoming students are able to register in General Education courses that form part of their major, the foundation year consists of the following courses, which are configured to meet requirements in architecture as well as any other future design-oriented programs: ARCH 233 Technical Drawing ARCH 223 Sketching ARCH 219 Introduction to Materials ARCH 211 Design Methods ARCH 212 Basic Design in Architecture ARCH 224 Architectural Communication ARCH 230 Design in Construction I

Teaching and Learning Strategies

The methods of instruction include a combination of class lectures, reading assignments (that students need to prepare prior to coming to class), take-home assignments, in-class assignments, and studio hours that provide the students with enough information to develop their projects, drawings and reports. The method of teaching at ARCHIDES is highly interactive aided with professional and collaborative lectures that aim to increase student achievement and have greater teacher efficiency. Teaching and learning strategies include, but are not restricted to: cognitive learning, deployment of graphic and audio-visual tools, applied learning, thinking, and design skills.