History

1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACULTY 1996-2016

The initiative to establish what is today the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy was launched in 1980. In 1994, The Ministry of Urbanism, Housing, Public Utilities and Civil Engineering of the Republic of Srpska deployed a working group tasked with drafting a feasibility study for establishing and providing working conditions of the then Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Banja Luka. The study was adopted first by the University, and then by the Government of the Republic of Srpska, after which the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, at their session of 28 August 1995, issued the Decision to establish the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Banja Luka. The first generation of students was enrolled in the Faculty’s Department of Civil Engineering, where classes started on 10 October 1996. The first call for applications for admission of students to the Department of Architecture was sent out the following year, in the academic year 1997/98. The Faculty drafted curricula for all years of study of both departments, awarding degrees of Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering and Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. The first draft of the curriculum for the Department of Civil Engineering was made by Prof. Srđan Kisin, PhD, and for the Department of Architecture by Prof. Milan Vojinović, PhD. The draft curricula were further developed in full cooperation of the Faculty’s teaching staff. These curricula were then used to complete the education of the first generation of students and round off a cycle of study. The preconditions were made for the reform of the curricula in line with the Bologna process, and an active participation of the Faculty in the process of EU integration in the area of higher education. These efforts were recognised by the European Commission when the Faculty was included in the Tempus Archicur project from 2001 to 2004, which was aimed at restructuring and modernising the architecture curriculum.

The reformed curriculum of the Department of Architecture was approved by the University of Banja Luka on 16 July 2004. The reformed curriculum of the Department of Civil Engineering was approved by the University of Banja Luka on 29 September 2006. Alongside organising classes in the undergraduate studies, the Faculty undertook organising graduate studies for both departments. First a master’s degree programme was launched in architecture and urban planning, which was approved by the University of Banja Luka on 12 July 2001. The master’s degree programme of the Department of Civil Engineering was initiated some time later, and the University approved its curriculum on 29 September 2005.

In the academic year 2007/2008, the Department of Geodesy took in its first generation of students. Starting with that academic year, all curricula and programmes were adapted to the Bologna process, taking on the 4+1 model, where the undergraduate studies last four years (240 ECTS points) and the graduate studies last one year (60 ECTS points). In accordance with the undertaken reforms, the Ministry of Education and Culture issued a Decision on 2 July 2007 whereby the departments of the Faculty were reorganised as study programmes. The first generation of students enrolled the Study Programme of Geodesy in the academic year 2013/14.

The Faculty was renamed to the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy on 13 October 2014. Today it operates within the University on two locations, facing numerous issues such as a lack of office space and classrooms, inadequate institutional arrangement and financial difficulties, as a reflection of the time we live in. In 2008, the Faculty and the University of Banja Luka initiated the production of a preliminary design and then the architectural plan for the construction of a new building of the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Banja Luka, located on University Campus grounds. The spatial requirements for the new Faculty building^[1] were defined by the current and projected number of students and the teaching process in the three study programmes. A single body of space, bringing together the capacities of an existing building with a newly planned section of the future Faculty building, differentiates numerous spatial and functional segments on a surface area of around 6400 m². Construction began in 2011 and is on-going. The new Faculty premises were designed in line with high environmental and social standards, and is supposed to facilitate further development of educational, scientific and research activities towards benchmarks set in highly developed countries of Europe and the world. This is why the project for the Faculty’s new building was submitted as a NAMA (National Appropriate Mitigation Action) proposal in 2015 to the relevant government body and contact institution compliant to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy has plotted a course of intensive development and involvement in the processes of EU integrations, which is most visible in improvements of the teaching processes and scientific work, securing proper space and equipment, close cooperation with faculties of similar nature, companies and various institutions.