The Department of Architecture aims at "Graduating leaders and entrepreneurs who embody the values of the university by providing an educational environment that encourages development, creativity, scientific research, and community service."
The department provides quality technical education that integrates theory and practice with a foundation in the arts and sciences.
The Bachelor of Architecture program expands this mission and seeks to instill in our students a keen awareness of and prepare them for living in a globally interconnected world. To foster in all our students a palpable sense of global citizenship, we will actively seek to attract a sizeable number of international students. As opportunities arise, we hope to participate in international student competitions and team up with colleagues from abroad with shared interests.
In 2008, Dar Al-Hekma approached the University of Colorado Denver to assist in developing the Architecture Program.
For almost eight months (November 2008 to August 2010), a team from UCD worked on developing the curriculum. During this time, there were constant amendments and developments based on discussions between the UCD team and the DAH/IDES Architecture team to ensure that the curriculum's environmental, contextual and cultural qualities remained relevant to the particular context of the Kingdom.
We also aim to instill global awareness and knowledge about architectural practice and challenges in other parts of the world in our design studios.
To generate a rich body of ideas, questions, and design criteria and foster intensive individual and collective learning, we intend to assign a wide range of short case studies of great diversity that students must immerse themselves in and subsequently present to one another. Thus, each student would be exposed to a wide range of paradigmatic design solutions, several of which will always represent work in other parts of the world to illustrate differences in cultural, political, socio-economic, climatic, and other conditions and the worlds of thought corresponding to these.
