About Us
ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT
The B.Sc. (Hons) Architecture and M. Sc. Programmes are designed as the first and second parts of a comprehensive programme leading to the first professional degree, which is registrable in Nigeria. The goal is to produce not only highly skilled architects, but also professionals who are able to relate their skills to their cultural environment. The programme is founded upon the principle that architectural problems are defined and solutions evolved from a contextual approach, including all the attendant social, cultural and economic factors. To this end, the essential intellectual and practical skills are organized in the programme.
The specific objectives are:
(i) To train students to acquire competence in design as individuals and as members of a design team;
(ii) To prepare students for work in all areas of the architectural profession;
(iii) To train students to solve environmental design problems through systematic approaches;
(iv) To develop the knowledge base and intellectual skills of the students to attend to those cultural factors which are essential to the creation of Architecture.
The strategies for achieving these objectives are related to the teaching approaches at lectures, tutorials, practicals, and the intensive studio approach with high levels of interaction time. The broader issues of the profession are also approached through direct teaching and the compulsory industrial work experience organized within the middle two years of the first degree. In addition there is a break between the two parts of the programme, which is intended for youth service but is untimely an unsupervised period of industrial training and exposure to the wider practice.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME
The Architecture programme is designed to train architects who would be of analyzing and evolving the requirement of a functional and physical space design. Aspect of Environmental Design and Aesthetics are also studied. The programme also offers thorough training in
architectural design, building construction detailing, working drawings, techniques of presentation and professional practice. Architecture calls for creative thinking, social responsibility, technical skills scientific knowledge, aesthetic sensitivity and ability to co-ordinate many related disciplines. This programme therefore, offers comprehensive studies in both the theory and practice of architecture together with its related objectives and value. Lastly, the intent of the programme to provide an educational environment where a student will acquire necessary knowledge of other disciplines, to prepare him/her with specialized skills, foster the development of professional competence, and awaken an awareness of societal conditions.
New demand will be made on future professionals as the area of services continue to expand and change. The challenge to an architectural curriculum to respond to these demands is immense. The new Department curriculum would be an effective vehicle towards a responsible contemporary architecture. It would lay emphasis on theoretical understanding, acquisition of basic skills and their application.
The curriculum has been designed to respond to three primary educational goals:
- a) The graduate of the Department should possess an acceptable level of professional competence which will permit him/her to work and develop effectively in his /her carrier area
- b) The graduate should be sufficiently aware of the forces shaping contemporary society to perceive the effect of these forces on the practice of architecture. He should be able to constantly review and adapt his abilities in response to these changes. Also he/she should
be aware of major social political and economic forces of the society. Awareness means to have basic understanding necessary to respond to changing conditions within the society, enough
knowledge to communicate the specialists who may contribute to his/her work and a complete enough sense of the content of these capital areas to make meaningful choices regarding them, as he/she approaches professional maturity.
- c) The graduate should have identified his own value sufficiently to permit him to conceptualize a better environment with a sense of conviction and direction. This got two implications, Firstly, the graduate can, from among a series of possible solutions to a problem, exercise a moral judgment in the selection of the most appropriate solution. Secondly, he/she can postulate changes in the existing societal constraints which will permit better solutions to existing problems. In short, the graduate should be able to formulate a future which is different from a simple projection of present forces.