The School of Architecture and Design (SoAD) is home to about 400 undergraduate and graduate students, and 60 full-time and part-time faculty members. SoAD offers three undergraduate degrees, one leading to the degree of Bachelor of Architecture, one leading to the degree of Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, and one leading to the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design; as well as three graduate degrees in Urban Planning and Policy, Urban Design, and the Interfaculty Master of Science in Environmental Sciences, with a major in Ecosystem Management. It is led by a director and three conveners, one for each academic program. The BLA program is the only program of its kind in the MENA region and received accreditation in 2021 making it the first accredited program by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) outside the USA.
The School has a number of research and teaching labs and centers, including the Interdisciplinary Design Practice Program (IDPP), Beirut Urban Lab (BUL), and the Sawaf Center for Arab Comics Studies. The teaching labs include the Printmaking Lab, Computer Graphics Lab, Tech Lab, Climate Design Lab, as well as Design Initiatives that deal with Emergency/Reconstruction Architecture (Di-Lab), the Metropolitan Landscape Research Lab (MLRL) and Arabic Typography. SoAD is a dynamic space for interaction with different professionals, scholars and publics. It organizes many public events throughout the academic year including the annual lecture series, City Debates conference, Sustainable Design week, and Comics Symposium.
SoAD alumni are distinguished leaders in the private sector, in international organizations, in NGOs and non-profit organizations, and in the academia.