The Faculty of Design Art and Architecture was founded in 1999. The Faculty offers four disciplines: Design, Theater and Film, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture, and six undergraduate majors: Visual Communication Design, Environmental Design, Product Design, Animation, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, among which Environmental Design is a National-level First-class Program. Design is a Key Discipline of Ningbo, with more than 1600 full-time students. The Faculty has built 30 sub-laboratories with a floor area of 8800 square meters, of which 4 are funded by the Central Government and 7 funded by the Provincial Government, with a total asset investment of nearly 40 million yuan.
The Faculty has 21 brand studios for teachers and 21 brand studios for enterprises. Based on these brand studios, it has gradually formed a “Teaching, Research, Service” Community and Studio-Featured Teaching Mode. Characterized by the intersection of disciplines and majors, the Faculty has built three major teaching systems, namely, Theory Teaching, Practical Teaching and Quality Development, aiming to cultivate multifaceted talents with multiple abilities in humanities and arts, engineering technology and project management. With the disciplines and majors deeply embedded in the industrial chain, the Faculty has cooperated with Phoenix Digital Media, Guangbo Group, Beifa Group, Shell Housing and other leading enterprises, deepening the integration of production and education, and promoting the cultivation of high-quality applied design talents.
To better serve society and economy, the Faculty has built three research bases (centers), including the Research Center for Port-centered Modern Service Industry and Creative Culture and the Ningbo Cultural and Creative Innovation and Development Research Base; four research institutes, including the Rural Revitalization Institute and New Folk Art Design Institute; and five industrial colleges and innovation centers, such as the Ningbo Cultural and Creative College, the Port-centered Urban and Rural Design College, the (Phoenix) Digital Creative College, and the National Colleges and Universities Digital Media Industry-Education Integration Innovative Application Demonstration Base. The Faculty is the Chairman Unit of the Cross-Strait Ningbo-Taiwan Universities Cultural and Creative Alliance, and the National (Ningbo) Cultural and Creative Industry-Teaching Cooperation Alliance, and was selected into the Cooperation Institutions of 2022 China-Foreign Humanities Exchange All-media Industry-Teaching Integration Project. All these platform systems have contributed to the development of various undertakings of the Faculty. In recent years, the faculty members have successfully applied for a number of national-level projects, such as the National Social Science Foundation Art Project and the National Art Fund Project.
The Faculty adheres to the principles of “On-site Design and Creative Design”, “Rooted in Ningbo, Based in Zhejiang, and Radiating out to the Yangtze River Delta Region”, focusing on the design of problem-solving models and the study of local knowledge, keeping pace with the frontier dynamics of the design discipline and the integration of the future sci-tech and design. The Faculty firmly grasps important national strategies such as “rural revitalization” and “digital creativity”, carries out basic theoretical research, application practice, and talent training from the perspective of design, and explores “Chinese-style design” and design education. The Faculty is committed to promoting the integration of cultural creativity, design services and related industries, getting actively involved in social construction with design, emphasizing “social design”, cultivating outstanding design talents with Chinese cultural stance and international vision, and contributing to the cause of serving society and the local economy.
The Faculty adheres to the concept of “people-centered design”, and stimulates the enthusiasm of teachers and students for “rural construction” by encouraging them to go to the countryside to work as sci-tech commissioners and improve their service ability. Up to now, teachers and students have visited more than 70 villages and communities in Ningbo, and have completed over 120 projects of various rural construction design and environmental upgrading and renovation, carrying out over 140 relevant scientific researches and offering training services to up to ten thousand farmers and agricultural technicians.
The Party Committee of the Faculty has been awarded five honorary titles, including the “Party Building Work Model Faculty in Zhejiang Higher Education”. The Second Party Branch of Teachers was approved to be the “National Party Building Work Model Branch” in 2022, and more than 10 Party members have been awarded honorary titles such as “Zhejiang Outstanding Sci-Tech Commissioners”, “Outstanding Communist Party Member of Ningbo Education System”, “Advanced Individual of Teacher’s Morality”, and “Good Teachers with Four Haves” in Ningbo.
Adhering to the concept of “taking harmony as virtue, educating with culture”, the Faculty has created an all-around talent development matrix by regularly organizing activities of all forms, such as Red Culture Painting and Calligraphy Exhibitions, “Voice of Harmony” series of cultural activities, overseas study tours during holidays, “Qianhu Forum” academic lectures, engaging fully in building a cultivation system with the characteristics of the Faculty, the characteristics of the region, and the characteristics of the times, so as to cultivate high-quality and distinctive applied talents.