Your academic adventure and challenge should be based on

"Content, Concept, Creativity and Communication"

On behalf of all our faculty, staff and students at the AUM Faculty of Architecture and Design, I am pleased to welcome you to the faculty and to our website. The faculty offers a vibrant learning environment dedicated to excellence and is committed to an ambitious cultural expression of creativity and innovation. Our goal at the faculty is to equip our students with the knowledge, creative skills, critical thinking and self-confidence, in order to produce creative artists and designers with solid fundamental academic skills in theory and practice for the advancement of a modern way of life.

At AUM/Faculty of Architecture and Design, every single faculty member seeks to provide our graduates with the skills of learning new ideas; designing and perfecting experimental techniques, as well as performing correct critical thinking. We infuse art and design sensitivities while harnessing technological advances, as well as respecting cultural and ethical values, community engagement and social needs. This prepares our graduates with the necessary creative skills and assets in order to adapt, no matter where they go in the world, and develop a deep understanding and empathy for the global society.

Based on the particularity of our faculty, we believe students are our most important asset. This is the place where art, visual communication, interior design and architecture embraces technology and aesthetic synthesis. Here, students can discover and improve the unique rules of aesthetics, or create sustainable interior and architectural designs, vital to the present and future needs, that allows for a feeling of meaning. It’s a place where you can think and act, imagine, realize, create, and design. It is the place in which the close working relationship between faculty members and students, and where junior students and more advanced students learn from each other and build upon their experiences to enhance their success in art and design studios. Therefore, the continuous necessity of re-defining art, graphics and interior design, and architecture both in theoretical and practical terms should be the main focus of teaching. This is because  "Theory without practice is as lifeless, as practice without theory is thoughtless".

On the other hand, modern technology has changed matters in art and visual communication, outreach material, design and architecture radically and promises to continue to bring rapid changes, while making a degree in art and design is far more valuable than ever before. Technology is also giving rise to new educational models in art, graphics and design tools which are merging in one process, in which a vital part the 3D digital photographic technology is the main base. What does all this mean; we face significant challenges and we move more quickly now.

However, the innovation in creative teaching isn't just only about technology. Using digital technology in art and design is only a tool that allows things to work fast and easy. The correct procedure is to plan and manage both different traditional and digital tools and techniques, considering the user and community needs. New technologies are difficult to be observed and accepted by the multidisciplinary community involved in art and design. However, in order to build a bridge between them, a dialogue must now be created between them. We should not only discuss issues of 3D digital presentation standards but simultaneously should discuss issues of achieving a humanistic creative visualization of production systems, starting by necessary traditional tools in order to reach the digital ones, which can now be actually easily achieved by the modern digital photographic technology.

What we need is an atmosphere that celebrates the creative process of critical thinking. I believe our work in the faculty, where artist, graphic and interior designers and architects, must be in dialogue with their selves in order to understand the world around us. We must find ourselves in a humanistic, ethical and creative dialogue. Creativity, in fact, is the keystone of our human knowledge, meanwhile, aesthetics is basically connected with ethics.

Welcome members of the "Poly-Creative" community. Remember, you are here for exploring new fields and breaking your own limitations.  You are not here just for listening to us and say only "yes". "If you don't ask, the answer is no." So please ask. Your professors, particularly in our smaller class environments, are here for you. You are the next digital native generation of this tradition and will play an integral role in creating the future of "Poly Creative" with an eye on imagination, innovation and creative design and visual communication. 

A critical path for developing your professional skills --and the other sets of competencies is to test out such skills in a collaborative and supportive environment based on what I will call the 4C's "Content, Concept, Creativity and Communication". It means at least one thing: a balance between those 4 components is needed in design practice. These words probably can capture what our students have been learning to do in order to prepare them to be creative critical thinkers and aesthetic problem solvers who will serve, enrich, and sustain their professions and communities. 

We are committed to providing a solid foundation for our students in art and design within a hands-on, experiential learning environment with small classes to learn first-hand about product innovation and creativity. We will be around here to assist you to push you and support you. Together we are going to discuss content/context possibilities, criticizing projects' concepts, forming creative questions, as a lot of our teaching is based on communication and dialogue.

In closing, I want to emphasize that we are all always in the position of learning and developing our knowledge and achievements. I look forward to creating and strengthening the platforms for dialogue and discourse that will allow us, individually and as a "creative community", to engage with the particularity of our Faculty, to receive and share knowledge, and to boldly put forth آ discussing possibilities and forming questions for solid Content, and criticizing projects Concepts and آ exchange of ideas, as alsoآ  Creative alternatives and possibilities for development of both students and faculty and new Communication tools that will help shape the Faculty future, as a lot of our teaching is based on dialogue in our growing programs.

If you have any questions or need further information, please do not hesitate to contactآ Dr Yasir Mohammed Sakr; Acting Chair, Department of Architecture y.sakir@aum.edu.jo, Dr Sami Al-Tall; Acting Chair, Department of Design and Visual Communication s.altal@aum.edu.jo, and Dr. Feda' Salah ; Acting Chair, Department of Interior Design f.salah@aum.edu.jo  And, of course, feel free to contact me at naif.haddad@aum.edu.jo

We invite you to explore the faculty Website to get additional information on our departments, curricula, requirements and course offerings, and discover more about our faculty, staff and students.  For now, let me thank you all for joining us and being a part of this special creative community.

Wishing you all a productive and creative new academic year.

Prof. Naif Adel Haddad

Dean of Faculty of Architecture and Design