Collaboration of Afghan and American Universities in a New Architectural Engineering Program at Herat University, Afghanistan

Herat architecture in Western Afghanistan has seen better days through its history than what is being practiced now. Its civil infrastructure during the Timuried Dynasty 500 years ago was structurally sound and aesthetically more pleasing as we see them in the splendid remnants of that era. The war of occupation by the Russians and the ensued civil war damaged or destroyed whatever was left of an architectural style peculiar to Herat. Migration to the neighboring countries during the war years has brought a hodgepodge of architectural styles from the neighboring countries which do not flow with its environment. One can see examples of Roman Architecture, Iranian Architecture, Pakistani Style building, and there are some which is hard to tell what architectural style has been followed. Through a concerted effort, Herat University in collaboration with the University of Hartford and funding from the World Bank, USAID, and US Army Corps of Engineers, established the Department of Architecture that would be offering an architectural engineering program at Herat University in 2010. One of the goals was to educate architectural engineering professionals who would reintroduce unique aspects of Herat architecture into the modern styles of building design, not only in Herat, but throughout Afghanistan. As a result of this collaboration, an architectural engineering program has been established at Herat University, its curriculum has been designed, faculty has been trained, equipment has been furnished, and the first batch of graduates form this program graduated in January 2014. Unlike other programs in the Faculty of Engineering at Herat University where students are absorbed based on the capacity of that program, almost all architectural engineering students are admitted based on their own choices. The program is very popular with female students with an overall female student population of 30 percent distributed throughout the three years as 24 percent sophomore, 67 percent juniors, and 33 percent senior. The Department Head and one of the professors are women who received their master’s degree from the University of Hartford. It is believed that having female professors who would be looked at as role models will have a strong effect in attracting such a large percentage of females to the program. This paper will outline in more detail the collaboration between the Herat University and the University of Hartford in establishing the architectural engineering program, its curriculum, student body, equipment, and lessons learned from the collaboration.