The core objective of the Department of Architecture is to produce graduates who, after adequate post-graduate apprenticeship, will serve the society as professional architects. Surrounding and supporting this objective, are the aspirations of a comprehensive education uniquely possible at a liberal arts university like Beaconhouse National, located in the intense milieu of a great city like Lahore. While the Department of Architecture, as part of the School of Architecture and Design (ScAD), benefits from interdisciplinary links with other schools at BNU, it enjoys a unique collaboration with the School of Visual Arts (SVA). The hallmark of this synergetic relationship is the specially designed common year of Foundation Studies: an intense matrix of lectures, seminars, experiments, site visits and carefully constructed studio experiences that, beyond imparting essential skills, encourage the questioning of hard boundaries among art, architecture and design. Those who intend to pursue architecture as career benefit the most from the experienced complexity of intentions and the necessity of multiple inputs implied in the foundation year projects. The five streams of curriculum built around the general content and pedagogy of theory, history, science, technology, and studio continue in years two, three and four after the foundation year. The fifth and final year is reserved for a comprehensive design thesis and a research project that are initiated by the student and supervised by a tutor. The inherent multi-dimensionality of architecture and the essential complexity of design choices are now addressed directly through these graduating projects that must become part of the ScAD degree show.

The Department of Architecture places special emphasis on the educational benefits of travel to historical and contemporary sites and has initiated series of options for directed studies abroad during the summer months as well as an extended study-travel option during the fourth academic year. Considering the historical and architectural value of Lahore, it is also planned that foreign programmes will be invited to send their directed studies abroad programmes to BNU.

At the new BNU campus, presently under construction, numerous workshop and laboratory type facilities are planned to provide students direct experience with materials and methods of construction, as well as environmental design concerns that have become increasingly crucial for our planet. Special efforts have been made to create situations in the new campus buildings such that the students of architecture, design and visual arts can learn through installations and on-site modifications.