Message from the Dean

The Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building has a clear mission of being recognised as a leader in innovative, interdisciplinary and practice-focused education in each of its disciplines.

Our undergraduate courses in visual communication, fashion and textile design, architecture, industrial design and interior design each take a design focus that draws together the experimental nature of innovation in design while remaining grounded in the professional attributes of well-crafted products. Whether designing garments, commercial products, media or buildings, our students are engaged with the competing intellectual requirements of new attitudes that are changing how we approach society and culture, technological advancement, requirements for sustainability and new materials. The facilities of the Faculty include a number of technical workshops allowing students to extend their professional capabilities by experimenting with constraints through prototyping designs as they develop.

Our undergraduate courses in construction and property economics have a grounding in construction and estate management, economics and law that provide our students with a broad range of capabilities that are both vocationally and academically based. The courses mix first-hand, professional experience with academic learning to build in our students the intellectual flexibility that will make them leaders in their challenging and changing industries. The Faculty's workshops and practical exercises that emphasise hands-on experience also enable students to learn through using and testing materials, bringing depth to the rigours of theoretical academic learning.

Each of the undergraduate courses offered by the Faculty has a major commitment to cross-disciplinary studies with electives available from a broad range of offerings across the University and exchange programs established with universities around the world.

Our postgraduate degrees can be taken as programs of research with a mix of written and design exegeses at Doctoral and Master's level, and there are also a number of coursework Master's degrees, Graduate Certificates and Graduate Diplomas in a range of disciplines forming extensions to professional-entry undergraduate degrees.

Professor Desley Luscombe, Dean