The Department of Architecture

The history of the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering can be dated back to 1937. In 1987, the Department of Architecture was founded at Xiamen University with assistance from Southeast University.

There are total 30 full-time faculty members in the department. About 40% of the teachers hold doctor's degree. Currently, one professor listed among the 100 Best Architects in Contemporary China, one professor with the title of "Masters of Engineering Survey and Design in Fujian Province", one professor owning the Excellent Young Architect Award (the highest award for young architects in China), and one professor honored as Teaching Master in Fujian Province. In addition, to enhance the quality of teaching and research, the school has also recruited over many adjunct professors, guest professors, and honorary professors from around the world.

In 2012, the discipline of architecture in the department was rated as the Provincial Key Disciplines of Fujian Province. Moreover, there are a lot of laboratories in the department. They are the Building Material Laboratory, the Architectural Modeling Laboratory, the Architectural Physics Laboratory, the Digital Design Laboratory. The department is also equipped with satisfactory education facilities, such as multimedia classrooms, audio classrooms, specialized classrooms for painting and design, computer rooms, and seminar rooms. Its library has collected 20000 books and journals, as well as audio and video documents.

When the Department of Architecture was established in 1987, two professors from Southeast University, Prof. Husheng Guo and Prof. Zhichang Lu, were commissioned as the earliest chairmen. Since the 1990s, under the leadership of Prof. Ren Huang, Prof. Shide Ling, and Prof. Shaosen Wang, the department has been developing markedly. The department was granted to confer master degree of Architectural Design and Theory in 1999. In 2003, it successfully passed the National Assessment of the Professional Education of Architecture in Higher Education Institutions, and was approved the first-tier discipline of Architecture to award the bachelor degree of Architecture directly. Two years later in 2005, it was approved the first-tier discipline to award the master degree of Architecture. In 2007, it successfully passed another round of National Assessment of the Professional Education of Architecture in Higher Education Institutions.

With arduous endeavor, this department has formed its characteristics in talent training and professional education:

1) Persisting in a development way of teaching-centered, but combined closely with scientific research and engineering practice. Through involving in many research projects and engineering projects held by the teachers in the department, as well as taking part in various professional contests, students can learn both the cutting-edge academic theories and useful professional skills, and therefore can be more competitive in the job market. Students in the department often get awards in National University Student Contest of Architecture Design. Some of them even won the first place in several international and region design contests.

2) Setting up the concept of "comprehensive quality education", constantly enriching and adjusting the teaching plans, and making full use of the multidisciplinary advantages of Xiamen University as a comprehensive university. Oriented by this concept, a subject system with five modules of "Base, Technology, Ability, Theory, and Intersection" has been configured in order to constantly provide high quality talents for the society.

Meanwhile, the department is also associated with one entrepreneurial institutes - the Research Institute of Architectural Design. With market-oriented operation and enterprise management, the institute is running just like those enterprises in the related industries, and therefore can provide a kind of simulation training base for the students. The institute has got the national first-level qualification.

The department is also very active in international academic exchange and cooperation. So far it has conducted cooperation with Cardiff University (UK), University of Pavia (Italy)，ENSAB(France), Lund University (Sweden)，and the National University of Science and Technology of Taiwan, in the areas of joint training courses, exchanges of teachers and students, and collaborative research. It has also built close academic ties with San Francisco State University (USA), the University of London (UK), the Technical University of Berlin. In recent years, the department has invited a number of renowned foreign scholars to visit Xiamen University as guest professors, and meanwhile has assigned dozens of students and faculty members to study or participate in an academic conference abroad. Approximately 35% of our full-time teachers here in the department have the experience of studying abroad.