About Us

The Department of Architecture is one of the four departments under the Faculty of Built Environment (FBE). In addition to FBE, the Faculty of Art constitutes the College of Art and Built Environment (CABE). Over the years, the Department of Architecture has produced architects and researchers for the local and international built environment. The department is accredited by associated professional institutions in Ghana and abroad, namely: (1) National Accreditation Board, (2) Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA), (3) Ghana Institution of Construction (GIOC), (4) Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA), and (5) Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The products of the department together with other allied disciplines within the University are the key players in the development of the nation as far as physical structures and environmental needs are concerned.

Mission and Vision of the Department

The vision of the Department is to become one of the leading Schools of Architecture in Africa for teaching, research, training in the fields of built environment and physical development and to produce high caliber manpower with knowledge and expertise to support the socio-economic development of Ghana, Africa and the world at large.The mission of the Department is to develop excellence in the practice of architecture through quality education, training, research and the provision of community service to meet the changing and future needs of our society.

Aims & Objectives

The aim of the Department is to develop programmes which will make it a Centre of Excellence in architectural education both in scholarship and professional practice so that it can effectively respond to the needs of society. Additionally, the Department aims at offering quality and versatile training to students to become leaders through internationally accredited degree programmes which produce competent professionals and a sound theoretical basis for higher academic pursuits.

The established objective of the Department is to provide a solid and broad-based architectural education, which would eventually produce architectural scholars with the drive and intellectual framework, capable of offering leadership within the technical team, responsible for the development of a sustainable built-environment, particularly in the African Sub-regional context- is offered by the Undergraduate Programme.

Consequent to this, products of this Programme should, within the context of the training, be able to assume a predominate and proactive role in a sustainable environmental management, development economics and financing, that would adequately address both local and global issues, in all aspects of the built-environment for advancing and improving the well-being of society, in general.

With this solid academic basis created at the Undergraduate level, the Postgraduate Programmes (namely M. Arch and M. Phil) are geared towards a two-pronged objective of equipping students with the requisite;

• Perception and skill for comprehensive analysis, design and implementation of architectural projects of varying complexities and scale (rural as well as urban), including special projects in conservation, restoration and building maintenance, and
• Ability for in-depth research and analysis of issues related to the built-environment, as well as the wherewithal to resolve problems of same.

The programmes are, primarily, designed to train and prepare versatile architects with varying professional foci to undertake effective professional practice in Ghana and elsewhere, with a greater orientation to employ architecture as a professional discipline and a tool to improve the quality of life, the sustainability of the environment and the promotion of the Ghanaian and African Cultural values.

The first objective of the Postgraduate programme has an orientation for students who have the greater tendency to practice as architects; the second objective encourages students to practice as professional architects and/or researchers, with the greater possibility of obtaining terminal degrees (Ph.D.) in architecture. This strategy would also enable them to acquire the capacity to help train other potential architects, thereby replenishing the ranks of the dwindling numbers of educators in Architecture in the country’s architectural education.

Ethos of the Department

The Department has an ethos that encapsulates the pedagogue which deals with the acquisition of skills and perceptions necessary to comprehensibly effect the analysis, planning and implementation of both rural and urban design projects of varying complexities and scale-based on the demands of Climate, Culture and Construction (the three Cs).

As in most Architectural Schools globally, the Studio Programme (Architectural Design Studio), remains the pivotal course (core-course) around which the Theoretical courses are structured and taught in the Department.