Promoting Sustainable Development in Arabia through Initiating an Arab Architecture Accrediting Board

Across the Arab world, there is no single architectural accreditation body overseeing architectural education in the region. This paper makes the case for establishing an Arab Architecture Accreditation Board and discusses the role it will play in developing architectural education and in particular moving towards sustainable development. First, it describes architectural education and what it entails, how architecture pedagogy takes on different criteria ensuring that academia responds to technical advancement, society requirements and future world strategies. Then it moves to describing architecture accreditation bodies in the UK, USA, Australia and the Commonwealth countries in terms of their history, validation criteria and specific differences between them. Finally, it will detail a short sequential review of some schools of architecture in Arabia in terms of their pedagogical criteria, the syllabi specifications for obtaining a Bachelor of Architecture degree and their validation criteria. Given that the achievement of sustainable development requires developing better building design through improving the educational system, the future of architecture professions in Arabia relies on rethinking how they educate their students and accredit their schools of architecture as part of a strategy towards achievable sustainable development.