Department of Architecture

General Programme Information

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Bachelor of Architecture (Hons)
Programme Information

Programme Characteristics

Cross-Disciplinary Approach in Architecture Education

We hold it as an important aspect of a good education to expose our students to a wide range of subjects, enabling them to have the ability of comprehending matters from different perspectives. As architecture is a multi-disciplinary profession that relates to engineering, landscaping, urban planning and interior design, it also requires certain understanding and awareness of the diversity of behavioural norms, needs, cultures, values and history of a society for better design and planning.

The Department, therefore, provides a cross-disciplinary curriculum which includes electives across different disciplines, such as general education, humanities and social sciences.

For the advance level (Level IV) courses in years 4 and 5, we provide cross-disciplinary courses in the form of lectures and seminars conducted by specific experts not only from our department, but also from other departments or external guest professionals and scholars.

Design and Thematic Research

Our Programme is a liberal education in architecture with social dimensions in design courses and with emphasis on engineering and technical aspects. The content of our Design Teaching will focus on a series of theoretical exploration themes characterized by local culture and environments such as waterfront spaces, density and openness, vertical city, etc. Besides, various research themes are integrated and coordinated in the design projects so as to nurture diversified ways of thinking and methodologies in design and research. Such research themes are categorized into the following three knowledge domains with examples as follows:

i) Building Science and Technology and Sustainability Domain
Topics on Construction Technology and Material Science, Sustainability and Environmental Controls, and IT in Architecture.

ii) Architectural History and Theory Domain
Topics on Architectural History, Urbanization and Cityscape, Sociology, Cultural Heritage and Media Theory.

iii) Professional Practice Domain
Topics on Architectural Practices, Development Viability and Project Implementation.

Different Streams of Specialization

The programme includes the domains of Design, History & Theory, Building Technology and Sustainability and Professional Practice. Most of the courses in Design and Professional Practice domain are required. Such arrangement allows students to understand the essential knowledge in the first three years and acquire more advanced stream-specific knowledge in the last two years.

In Year 4 and 5, they are required to select a stream according to their interest for developing their knowledge and skills of architectural research and practices. The design programme in Year 4 is set in an integrated architectural design approach, while the design programme in Year 5 is set up to synthesize stream-specific research and design. Some highlights of the different streams are listed below.

Architectural Design and Theory Stream: The stream aims at facilitating students to understand the underlying complex relationships amongst architecture, urbanism, culture and society. Such relationships reflect the historical evolution from traditional to complicated contemporary ideals and values. Notions of such relationships are investigated to seek ways to reflect contemporary design methodologies.

The Building Technology Stream: This stream provides knowledge for understanding and exploring in the frontier of building science and technology from the perspectives of architects. This stream also explores sustainability issues with an emphasis on the holistic approach embracing the socio-cultural, economic and technological sectors.

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