Bachelor of Architecture

Architecture Discipline, Khulna University (ArchKU) is one of the first four pioneering disciplines that started its academic doings in 1991, as Khulna University – a globally ranked university, began its academic journey three decades ago. It was the second educational entity to offer a five-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) program in Bangladesh and the first to do so outside Dhaka. It was also the first to offer architectural education in a general public university. It began with the efforts of a small group of young, dedicated, and bright academics who initially took the challenge to develop a unique curriculum for the program. Some novel approaches were assumed for the drafting of this curriculum to make it contextual and international at the same time. Courses like Aesthetics, Architecture of Bengal, Environmental Design,
Ecology, Computer-Aided Design (CAD), etc. were offered first in Bangladesh, which many other architecture programs later adopted. In addition, provision for full-time faculties with a Civil Engineering background was created in the organogram to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange and innovation. To quote the first Head of the Discipline, “Architecture education amid a multifarious academic and research atmosphere like Khulna University offers students a broad-based context to nurture their talent”. The first curriculum, with its strong interdisciplinary ties, laid the foundation for strong context-sensitivity, inspiring critical knowledge accumulation and creative works. It transpired the philosophical underpinning for all later curricula, including this recent one. ArchKU dreams of becoming a global center of excellence in architectural education, conducting graduate programs and research in architecture and along/across its allied streams. In fostering professional knowledge and producing
professionals, ArchKU maintains the right balance between theory, research, and practice, both local and global. Focus is given to need-based and performance-based processes and products involving expertise from various allied fields, but
without compromising the fundamental nature of a collective art form. From the very onset, ArchKU faculty and staff have been working as a team and setting the benchmark for excellence for its students and Khulna University as a whole.
ArchKU thrives in adopting state-of-the-art teaching methods, routinely updating them, and encouraging the faculty for continuous research/publication, training, and exposure to professional practices. ArchKU aspires to create leaders and team players with lifelong learning abilities. It also aims to instill a high level of analytic capacity into its graduates so that they can bring out their best in any context with originality in thinking,
designing, and making a sustainable built environment. Beginning with its first batch of graduates in 1996 having commendable academic and professional competence, ArchKU left a lasting impression on the architectural academia and practice in Bangladesh. Outstanding ArchKU graduates serve the professional arena worldwide, frequently winning national and international design recognition and holding influential academic and research positions in HEIs at home and abroad. Many of them have excelled in allied but diverse professional paths, which include but are not limited to urban design and planning, archaeology, geography, sustainable development, research, computation and visualization, project management, public service and policy making, photography, and graphic design, and social activism.
Beginning with a ‘Semester system’, the B.Arch. program switched to the ‘Course-Credit system’ to keep in line with international standards and give more flexibility and opportunity to students’ academic pursuits. As one of the few professionally accredited B.Arch. programs in Bangladesh, ArchKU, through its curriculum, maintains strict compliance with IAB Accreditation Standards and the UIA Charter. The Course Alignment Matrix details ArchKU curricula’s adherence to the requirements of these accreditation bodies by highlighting 05 fundamental specialization
streams of architectural education. ArchKU maintains a culture of inviting external experts (academics and professionals), especially during the design jury
process, to critically appraise and highlight the significance of peer process and alternative perspectives in knowledge accumulation and creation. ArchKU has always been earnest in converging academia with practice. Keeping Design Studio at the heart of the B.Arch. program, provisions for supporting field-oriented session al courses have been created in all years/semesters. The program also emphasizes learning by doing. Through this process, students become aware of ground realities. They can continually learn about the importance of socio-cultural, technological, and environmental
needs, enabling them to understand contextualize and devise sustainability.
Complying with global standards, ArchKU maintains a manageable annual student intake through a rigorous screening process to ensure intake quality. This strive for quality and excellence has become a hallmark of ArchKU. It will also be
further benefited by the newly implemented Undergraduate Ordinance 2022 of Khulna University. Further elaboration and explanations of this ordinance, in the form of a program execution manual, has also been included in Appendix 2. ArchKU
offers various resources, including libraries, labs and ICT facilities, organizes term-wise lectures and seminars, and hosts informal learning events, dialogues, and workshops with national and international communities and professionals.