This course will be used as test course during Moodle Workshop for instructors

This Design Studio is the first of a chain of studios that foster research and innovation in architecture design. It is focused on the development of analytical and technical skills for perceiving, understanding, and manipulating spatial definitions and relationships, in light of the investigation results of the students’ immediate context to unravel direct, unfulfilled, and latent stakeholders needs. Rather than enforcing a generic formal premise, students shall learn to progressively develop innovative solutions based on responding to a specific user needs, what the site and the natural environment have to offer, and exploiting the properties of the material(s) they use.

Students shall investigate, first, different activities in an urban living towards the development of innovative solutions and then the subject of these investigations shall change to encompass different types of a dwelling.

This course seeks to enhance the basic arithmetic skills and vocabulary, which are required for the study of algebra, numerical computations and analytical geometry to prepare students to undertake the course Math 110. Topics include operations with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, evaluating and simplifying variable expressions, basic geometric problems, solving linear equations, quadratics equations and inequalities, basic trigonometry, vectors in 2D and basic differential calculus.

This course includes instruction in Calculus topics common to the standard college first semester Calculus
course to prepare students to undertake the course ARCH 205. It begins with a review of algebra, various
factorization techniques, operations and simplification of algebraic and compound algebraic fractions, and
how to Discuss when trinomials has rational factors; then the Real numbers and the real line, the absolute
values and intervals are introduced. In addition, in this course, the students learn the properties of Lines,
Circles, Parabolas, and the functions and how to draw their graphs. In this course, the student studies how to
identify functions and Mathematical models, such Linear functions, Algebraic functions, trigonometric
functions, transcendental functions, etc. At the end, this course covers different topics such as Limits and
Continuity; differentiation with application to curve plotting; Rolle’s theorem; integration with application
to area, distance, volume, arc length; and fundamental theorem of calculus.

Introduction to technical drawing

Introduction to descriptive geometry 

In this course, students will acquire an in-depth understanding of the historical/conceptual development and production of furniture artifacts with the most used materials namely: Wood & Metal. Students will get familiar with the evolution of furniture through the different historical design periods spanning different geographies/cultures (from 3000 BC until present time). In-class lectures and demonstrations of the materials’ characteristics will be accompanied with hands-on exercises at the university’s workshops. This course will focus on spreading awareness around the culture of furniture designing and making, all while widening students’ career options giving them the choice to work as designers and/or makers in their future journey.

This is the second computer aided design course stressing on advanced digital communication and computation skills. This course introduces students to three-dimensional modeling and rendering tools as well as vector /pixel drawing management and layout design through Adobe suite interfaces (Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign). This course will not only introduce students to the necessary tools to explore design concepts through digital modeling, but also plan, design and manage their visuals and layouts, as well as creating professional e-portfolio and design resumes.

Despite their infinite variety, all cities- from the first settlements to the modern megalopolis- serve and are essentially a reflection of a number of functions to their citizens, namely: social, political, legislative, cultural, and economic. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a basic theoretical framework to enable them to read, investigate, and understand the complexities of the city with its components. Through a set of case studies, students shall realize how Urban and City Planning as a practice (both through physical interventions and policies) is affecting positively or negatively the life of its citizens. Starting from the genesis of cities and passing through the main normative and descriptive theories of city form, at the end of the course students will have the capacity to read and understand the urban form through different theoretical lenses, know of different forms of transportation systems and their positive and negative impact on the urban life and city form, and appreciate the impact of the citizens involvement in the urban choices.

This studio emphasizes the complete building as a final product, engaging issues of structure, circulation, program, organization, building systems, materiality and tectonics, and will explore the emerging technologies in environmental systems as a means to create sustainable buildings that are responsive to their environment. Semester work schedule is organized in segments addressing a particular urban location and program at three different scales, emphasizing the imperative people-centered relationship between architectural space, site and city.

This studio is centered on a design practice that aims at fostering and developing an in-depth understanding of an integrated design approach that focuses on meeting the direct and hidden needs of a local community with an emphasis on private and public programs. This studio builds upon the previous design course by integrating parameters related to the complexity of the urban context, Techne (materials, technology, and purpose), and computation into the design process. Through integrated design, projects have to meet high-performance and enhanced energy and environmental performance and have to effectively respond to the extrinsic factors related to issues of site seen through its geographic, cultural, and legal dimensions.

This course is an introduction to an overview and concepts of Computer Aided Design in lectures and exercise form. It enables the students to execute various 2-D digital architectural drawings. The course will comprise basic computer aided drafting skills using the latest release of CAD software including: file management, Cartesian coordinates system, drawing setup, drawing aids, layer usage, drawing 2D geometric shapes, editing objects, array, text applications, dimensions and dimension variables, paper space and viewports, templates, external references, and printing/plotting.

This course deals with the response of building envelopes to surrounding environmental factors; covering in detail the components of the envelope: Substructure, superstructure, internal construction and finishes. This course is also an introduction to construction detailing. The aims of the course are for students to carry a basic knowledge of building construction and conventional structural systems and domestic services and to make informed decision on material choices and energy transfer mechanisms. At the end of the semester, students should be able to demonstrate a synthesis of their understanding through a design project with relevant analytic details.

This course is an introduction to the basic language of visualization and conceptual reading/representation of life forms, architecture, and their context offering a shared inventory of mental and manual skills to enable students to further their research and applications in their future spatial design work.

This course addresses the review of concrete and steel structural systems, and the selection of specific applications for structural design projects applicable to a real life situation. This course also tackles the fundamentals of reinforced concrete and steel design methods used in current engineering practice. The comparison between theoretical design and code compliance (Concrete/ACI, Steel/AISC) for detailed design is covered as well.

This course seeks to develop informed intuition for structures by emphasizing underlying concepts and synergy of form and structure and encourage creative design integration. The course also aims to convey engineering concepts for analyzing of basic structures and for an effective communication with engineers. Students will conduct also various design experiments related to the topics that they have learned before in lectures.

This course aims for students to acquire disciplinary design skills by developing methodologies for design research, and investigations on a various set of tangible problems and learning the necessary tools and methods in design thinking to develop solutions to these problems. In the process, students shall develop rigorous critical inquiry- challenging untested assumptions- teamwork, model building and drawing, and most importantly, a systematic approach to both incremental and radical innovations.

The method to be followed is the creative thinking process that can be defined along the following steps: observe, define, ideate, prototype, test, fail, and succeed.

The World History of Architecture I is the first in the series of history courses. This course deviates from the chronological traditional timeframe and aims at a THEMATIC categorization of historical architectural artifacts.    

The course investigates a new mean for studying ARCHITECTURE and DESIGN through the history of architecture. The goal is not limited to the study of historical examples as a historical architectural evolution of the types, but rather an encounter and a close reading and study of precedents of architecture. Realizing that architecture embodies in itself the duality of making its own history and the history/past of its typology, every building is a precedent and a continuity of an earlier ‘precedent.’ 

Required for fifth year, fall term Prerequisites (ARCH 502) This course is the first component of the students’ year- long design study of an architecture issue of their choice whereby students are expected to develop an independent position and proposition. The design study continues during the spring term. The course shall be fulfilled through the completion of ARCH 602. 

From the catalogue:

 “The course introduces students to contemporary trends in media and communication theories. It focuses on contemporary theories in media studies and how to implement them in research within the context of Arab media and society.” 

In this course, particular care is given to support beginner learners in building up a strong foundation of basic language and learning skills. Learners will be introduced to the basic structures of the English language and will be given continuous support to develop the minimum required in the four skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing. At the end of this level, learners will be able to listen to, read, analyze, and understand simple beginner to lower-intermediate level texts, have simple conversations about basic matters, and to write short narrative and descriptive paragraphs with minimal grammatical and mechanical errors.

This course covers the development and particularities of Arab communication systems and examines the effect of such contexts on media content and Arab societies.

This course considers key developments in film, television, and animation production, as well as distribution and exhibition systems, and their significance in the contemporary digital era. There is particular focus on the Lebanese media, particularly in the area of television.

 This course instructs students on different communication formats and styles within the work environment, and how to adjust to each one. It attempts to prepare students to handle a variety of business situations by addressing transferrable skills, or soft skills. This includes: building their self-confidence, networking and PR skills, financial savvy, time management skills, stress management, organizational skills, job search skills, interview skills, and general business etiquette whether at the office or at a business function.

This course aims at introducing students to the latest issues and topics in management not previously covered in other major courses.

NEW SECTION 

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and standards underlying financial accounting systems. Several important concepts will be studied in detail, including revenue and expenses recognition, merchandising activities, inventory, financial assets, long-lived assets, PPE, intangibles and long term liabilities. 

The course emphasizes the construction of the basic financial accounting statements which are the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement, as well as their interpretation.

This course teaches students to utilize statistical tools to solve practical business problems. The topics include a variety of concepts of both descriptive and inferential statistics.  The course host a collection of competences like description, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data, in addition to probability, random variables, estimations and their applications to business frameworks. This course introduces applied statistics for business and management covering topics of estimation; hypothesis testing; analysis of variance; simple regression and correlation; multiple regressions; introduction to nonparametric statistics; and goodness of fit tests and contingency analysis. The course also emphasizes the use of spreadsheets and interpretation of the output of analysis.

This course aims at helping the students understand the basic mathematical operations and techniques that are used to solve economic and business-related problems. Real life applications introduced for better understanding of the materials.

This course constitutes an introduction to marketing principles. It introduces principles and problems of marketing goods and services. Provides an overview of marketing concepts including marketing inputs in strategic planning, global marketing, marketing research, analysis of buyer behavior, market segmentation and positioning, and development of the marketing mix element

This course focuses on customer services management that needs to support the delivery of the core product and the service products themselves. This course is designed to develop the necessary skills applying customer service management. The course examines various service situations and develops an attitude of superior customer service which is critical to success in all businesses. This course analyzes problems and issues related to service mix, service-level decisions, formulation of service policies, customer service management, development, training, and evaluation of customer service staff. Discussion covers customer information, customer surveys and suggestions, handling of complaints and adjustments, techniques for dealing with difficult and angry customers, dissemination of information, and the development of new customer orientated programs. Prerequisite: MKTG 204 Principles of Marketing.

This course aims at developing an understanding of the importance of brands, what they represent to consumers and what firms should do to manage them properly. It highlights the importance of brand equity as well as how to build, measure, leverage and manage that equity regionally and globally. It also emphasizes the importance of designing proper marketing programs and integrating marketing communication to build strong brand management strategies. Prerequisite: MKTG 204 Principles of Marketing.

Business Research Methods equips students with the skills to develop and undertake a research dissertation. It provides the theoretical and practical preparation for business research. The course covers the necessary skills and requirements for a literature review, qualitative and quantitative methods, and a research proposal, in addition to the pragmatics of ethics and project management. (year 3 level)

This course is an introductory course to entrepreneurship. It covers issues related to the nature and importance of entrepreneurship; forms of entrepreneurship; the entrepreneurial process; the entrepreneurial mind; creativity, ideas and innovation; screening entrepreneurial opportunities; identifying resources to support entrepreneurial activities; intellectual property issues; accessing finance and other resources; the entrepreneurial team; assessing risk; business structure and ethics; entrepreneurial strategy; finding and reaching customers and marketing innovation; feasibility planning.

This course introduces students to the corporate social responsibility’s concepts and issues from social, cultural and economic perspectives and the conflicts that can arise between corporate values and interests. It focuses on the public responsibility an organization undertakes within the community, the obligations to the environment and the ethical challenges it faces as part of its sustainability and business strategy, and beyond its traditional goals of generating profit and growth.

The course teaches students how information systems are used in a business setting to solve critical organizational issues through various information systems function. Students are also acquainted with the core advantages of properly using information systems planning and design in the objective, among other things, to develop expertise in the field, cope with ethical matters, and making sound strategic decisions.

This course is an introductory course to entrepreneurship.  It covers topics related to the nature and importance of entrepreneurship, forms of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial mind and the entrepreneurial process. It also explains the process of developing successful business ideas including recognizing opportunities and generating ideas, encouraging creativity, conducting feasibility analysis, developing an effective business model, conducting industry and competitor analysis and writing/presenting a business plan.

During the period of March 11-18, 2023, the Jamal Abed Faculty of Architecture is organizing the Design Week event with the support and sponsorship of the Friends of Jamal Abed, our late Dean of Architecture.

The Design Week is a unique design-learning and experimentation workshop where 65 students from our 5 curriculum years will team up in 13 teams, of 5 students each, competing to challenge preliminary design schemes regarding a selected topic of architecture, highlighting the importance of design thinking, team spirit and innovation as core constituents of architectural education.

This course introduces the fundamental principles of Electricity, Voltage, Amperage, and Wattage. Generation and distribution of power High Tension (HT) and Low Tension (LT) will be addressed. This course tackles also the preliminary analysis, estimation, and design consideration of building electrical systems. In addition to highlighting the electrical requirements and distribution in buildings and the related execution problems, the course covers sustainable tools/technologies and measures for reducing power consumption with exposure to preliminary calculations of costs and savings.

A design studio focused on investigating the relationship between architecture and the inner possibilities of nature whereby architecture design remains an open dialogue between the initial natural conditions and the space’s emerging configuration. Discovering dimensions of sustainability derived from biomimicry is an essential design philosophy and approach that students will investigate as they strive to meet global challenges and consequently the building complex needs. Parametric design and simulation modeling form the vehicle towards exploring design solutions.

This course is aimed at providing the students with advanced knowledge, aptitude and skills required to use a range of fundamental computational modeling skills in Architecture and Design. The course shall focus on applications in the family of "NURBS" or more simply "surface and solid" modelers that is called Rhinoceros or just Rhino for short. It will be covering all main 3D and experimental advanced modeling approaches in Rhinoceros as well as introducing parametric design modeling and Knod modeling on Grasshopper. At the end of the course, students are expected to operate, analyze, model and manipulate complex shapes in design.

A combined Lecture and Studio course consisting of: Implementation of architectural design projects in construction and detail plans considering technical requirements. The course covers overview plans, site plan, sections and elevations, wall sections, staircase details, different (doors, windows, finishing) schedules, and other project related details.

This course is an introduction to an overview and concepts of Computer Aided Design in lectures and exercise form. It enables the students to execute various 2-D digital architectural drawings. The course will comprise basic computer aided drafting skills using the latest release of CAD software including: file management, Cartesian coordinates system, drawing setup, drawing aids, layer usage, drawing 2D geometric shapes, editing objects, array, text applications, dimensions and dimension variables, paper space and viewports, templates, external references, and printing/plotting.

A combined lecture and studio course consisting of: recent building technologies, materials, finishing work and materials, and the methods, contents, and presentation of professional construction documents including execution drawings, details and schedules. The course covers building components such as floors, roofs, walls, doors, windows, and stairs. It equips students with an adequate level of knowledge and applications in the processes and procedures for building component and the multiplicity of ways that they impact architectural design. Students will get an exposure to the general construction practices by undertaking site visits. After completing this course, students will be able to: describe the relationship between drawing and construction, identify the different types of construction drawings, and use traditional and by building a synergy with the concurrent CAD I use computer aided drafting techniques to produce basic construction drawings.

This course represents an introduction to the mechanical installations in various building types. On the first hand, it deals with the Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems, energy management systems and solar collectors. On the other hand, sanitary engineering issues such as water distribution, sanitary systems and rainwater drainage will be tackled.

This course offers an introductory overview of the principal materials used in the construction industry of today.  More specifically, the course introduces the fabrication and properties of the main classes of materials: metals, ceramics, polymers and composites with special focus on steel, concrete, brick, glass, plastic and wood. Fundamental characteristics of these materials are explained along their structural, mechanical, physical and chemical properties as well as along their behavior and long-term performance. At the end of this course, students will gain a comparative knowledge of material properties and possible applications in architecture. In addition, they will demonstrate a basic ability in evaluating the effect of the environment on service life performance, properties and failure modes of these materials.

One of the most notable shifts in professional practice is the wide acceptance and integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM). This class introduces a new way of thinking about deliverable documents and the collaborative framework that a parametrically virtual model is working to provide. BIM is becoming an industry standard because of its intuitive interface and for its ability to facilitate opportunities to connect between the Architect, Consultants, and Contractor. BIM simultaneously delivers real time working drawings and high quality spatial renderings to streamline the concepts-to-working drawings process. This course will utilize Autodesk Revit 2017 and provide the basic skills to create and maintain a parametric building model to use for renderings, working drawings, massing studies, and coordination of disciplines.

The course aims to introduce students to Seismology and Earthquake Engineering basics, seismo-tectonics, ground motion, earthquake magnitude, Seismic hazard, structure vulnerability, and risk. Students will learn to conduct a Structural analysis via Lateral force method, alongside with the geotechnical consideration of the soil where the structure is to be constructed, and to apply the basics of Conceptual Seismic design of building structures, specifically the general principles and code requirements for seismic design and detailing of structural frames and elements (beam, column, foundation) design and detailing. Students will be introduced to basic principles of conceptual design (diaphragms, floor response, story drift, etc.…) and will explore the choice of structural system, regularity criteria, vertical and horizontal structures and configurations, and the choice of ductility class. Students will investigate the CONCEPTUAL Seismic design of RCC Concrete buildings, Steel buildings, Masonry structures, Precast and Modular, alongside with the conceptual seismic design of Infill walls and non-structural elements, and the Safety verification via ultimate limit state and damage limitation verification . Students will explore the selection of the appropriate seismic control and protection system (Energy dissipation, Base Isolation, Dampers, etc...) and will learn the importance of integrating all these essential elements in the Architectural configuration of the structure.

This design studio embodies the concept of ‘Techne’ – as knowledge related to making – to form a salient axis in fostering research and innovation in design.

Students shall explore within the triad of user, environment, and material the configuration of space and form in response to human needs and behavior, tectonics of material and processes of construction, and site and contextual drivers.

The course, the second in its series, investigates a new mean for studying ARCHITECTURE and DESIGN through the history of architecture; where the goal is not limited to familiarity with historical examples as a historical architectural evolution of the types, but rather an encounter and a close reading and study of precedents of architecture as reflections and interpretations of ideas, modes of constructions and societal conditions.

Rather than a chronological survey, the course is organized thematically, with examples drawn from a range of historical periods as well as contemporary practice.

This course is the second component of the students’ year- long design study of an architecture issue of their choice. The design study must be of a professional and of scholarly caliber that entitles students to graduate as professional architects ready to pursue their academic and/or profession career that is propelled by the research questions/interests that are identified and sharpened during this year.

This introductory course provides students with the intermediate knowledge and skills required in the production of diverse multi-platform content, including video, graphic or audio based. Skills, knowledge and approaches are developed using editing software Adobe Premiere 

This course is designed for students with little or no background in music who would like to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of how music works. Students will be introduced to different kinds of musical notation, melodic systems, harmonies, meters, and rhythmic techniques with the goal of attaining basic competence in the performance and creation of music. Students will also learn to approach music as both an intellectual and emotional activity; they will learn about music’s historical, sociological, cultural, and biographical contexts; and they will gain knowledge of the many traditions of music.