The School of Architecture is located on the Xiangshan campus. It was first established in 1928 with a long academic history. It was merged into another university in 1952 due to a national adjustment of higher education. In 1984, the Environmental Design Institute was established and the Department of Environmental Design was set up in 1989. In 2003, the Department of Architecture was re-established and it proposed initially an educational goal to train vernacular “intellectual craftsmen” architects. The School of Architecture was established in 2007. It aims to re-establish Chinese vernacular architecture as the basis of re-starting architectural education programs in art colleges and improving Chinese architectural education and re-constructing Chinese vernacular characteristics in the international context.

The School of Architecture tries to communicate architectural education with the contemporary world on an equal platform; it promotes vernacular, original and creative architectural, urban, environmental and landscape design; it tries to construct a natural and ecological society; hands-on experimentation is emphasized and is one of the most unique features of its teaching. There are four departments, including Department of Architecture, Department of Urban Design, Department of Environmental Design and Department of Landscape Architecture. There are also institutes such as Architectural Construction Research Center, Landscape and Architectural Design Institute, Architectural and Environmental Lab, Sustainable Construction Lab, Urban Space and Geographic Computer Lab, Landscape Ecological Lab, etc.