2015-2025. It is recognized at a national level for the professional capability which its graduates develop, through high quality and socially responsible urban-architecture-construction projects and through sustainable strategies applied to their designs, achieving with this their recognition and acceptance in the public and private sector, as well as in the society in which they are immerse.

There are agreements with all the Higher Education Institutions of the Association of Architecture Teaching Institutions (ASINEA by its initials in Spanish) and of the Consortium of Mexican Universities (CUMEX by its initials in Spanish). On the other hand, there are mobility programs with national and international academic pairs which are oriented to education development through the mobility of students, professors and researchers, promoting the exchange of academic, professional and research experiences as well as the dissemination of art and culture.

The academic unit is consolidated through a platform of linking networks with the productive and entrepreneurial sector as well as with the public sector, which has a direct impact on the comprehensive and quality formation of students. Therefore, the School of Architecture, Torreon Unit, is a point of reference in our society.

It has a flexible study program which allows a quality coverage, a consolidated constructivist-humanistic education model. It has specific mechanisms to monitor, assess and upgrade students and professors.

The students are instructed by a full-time staff of professors divided by subjects, highly qualified and with recognized prestige. Along with the management, the mentorship program achieves a high graduation efficiency rate with a degree option of EGEL quality. It has a consolidated Academic Body with a high productivity through articles published in indexed magazines, besides doing research according to the projects linked to the 2016 Education Program, in order to meet social needs, demands from the private sector and requirements from the public sector.

It implements certification mechanisms for different software programs and modern technologies in order to form professionals of the architecture discipline in the different areas of knowledge in the urban-architecture-construction field.

The School of Architecture, Torreon Unit, has specialized cutting-edge facilities and equipment, which are useful to support teaching and research according to the Lines of Generation and Application of Knowledge which the Academic Body performs, such as: labs and workshops designed with an innovative conception, adequate to the education model and equipped for this objective.

The School of Architecture, Torreón Unit, does its academic daily work based on the development of values which contribute to the formation of human capital, through the constructivist-humanistic education model implemented in the Academic Unit since the 2005 Reform which is mentioned below.

The development of Knowing, Doing, Being and Coexisting in the members of our university community is crystalized with the operation of the Education Model, assuming the institutional values from the consideration of students as the center of the education process. The rest of the university members should not only give a good example of the living of values, but they should also plan, prepare and construct environments which allow their development. Thus, we must all commit to act in an ethical sense in every aspect.

In the specific case of students, the experience of values is observed in situations such as the following ones:

HONESTY: The student does its homework centered in their own learning, assuming truth as a foundation for knowing how to learn to learn, to do, to be and to coexist with others.

RESPONSIBILITY: Every students assumes the fulfillment of their duties and responds to the commitments acquired in their formation process, by becoming part of a university environment characterized by the clear definition of them.

FREEDOM: The students have the faculty of following their vocation and professional interests and in consequence, they can choose the means and materials to learn.

JUSTICE: Each member of the students’ community is treated with equality and can enjoy the services and infrastructure which are offered to facilitate their comprehensive formation.

RESPECT: The formation actions are performed in an environment of tolerance and acceptance of diversity of opinions, capabilities, abilities and preferences.

Every university space is considered to be a learning community where we should prioritize the development of abilities for collaborative, inter and interdisciplinary work over the individual achievements, which requires the presence of traits such as equality, quality and sustainability according to the next considerations:

EQUALITY: To promote the integration of all the university members, facilitating a transparent access, in conditions of equality, to all the stages and resources of the learning-teaching process, providing them with similar opportunities in each of the education programs.

QUALITY: The attitude and capacity to do things correctly since the first time are traits which are developed in students to achieve their academic purposes with an optimal professional performance after they graduate, by taking advantage of the services and resources which are provided by the institution to meet their high quality needs and expectations as a university member.

SUSTAINABILITY: Tomorrow’s professionals are formed in an education environment where the commitment to the environment and the improvement of the community’s living standards are tangible, putting into practice the abilities and knowledge to find solutions and create new paths towards a better future.

MAINTANABILITY: It will be achieved through the education program through which our graduates will apply professional capacities and competencies such as tools, knowledge, abilities, skills and aptitudes required to create an ideal quality of life for themselves and a path of self-accomplishment.

The School of Architecture, Torreón Unit, follows the declaration of principles established by the institution and accomplishes the mission which the society entrusted to it, with a strategy of academic strengthening centered in learning, underlining that this must be comprehensive, significant and lifelong.

In 1985, the architect Víctor Eloy Martínez Echavarría was elected as Dean. He established a new study program of annual architecture studies, with a functionalist tendency. At that time, the first full-time professors were established and he created Area, Department and Research Coordinations as well as connections with other universities in the country.

A change is generated in the tendency to a more specific proposal on contemporary Mexican architecture. Due to a historical paradigm, the school was named “Luis Barragán Morfín, School of Architecture”.

The high level architecture weeks were implemented with guests at a national level. In 1987, the architect René Mata Macías was elected as the Dean, consolidating in his two-year period the academic activities, being an example of this the presence of the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez in the week of architecture named “THE CULTURAL IDENTITY OF THE REGION”. Another particularity was the administrative organization through the work plans of the institution.

In 1989, the architect Javier Reyes Engstrom took the position of Dean, who, in a period of six years, got the students of the school to attend the national contests of architecture students from ASINEA, obtaining, in the year of 1993, a third place with the participation of the nowadays graduate architect Juan José Flores Conyers, in the National Encounter of Architecture Students (ENEA by its initials in Spanish), which belonged to this assembly. The successive architect was Alberto Galván Tamayo in the year of 1996, making the school develop a Master Plan of the University City of the Torreón Unit of UA de C, as well as the projects of the Cultural University Center and the Infocenter, in which there was a direct participation of students and teachers of this school.

In 2002, the architect Sergio Zúñiga Mejía Borja was elected as the Dean. By 2005, the curricular reform to the study program was defined, leaving behind the annual plan and paving the way to a semester plan, with a tendency based on the future professional market and on the new needs of a globalized society which was in constant transformation. It included new digital computer technologies as well as a line of thought directed to the care for the environment and to sustainable architecture, a trend which continues being implemented nowadays. In the same way, it visualized the graduate professional of our school as part of a multidisciplinary group in order to create greater opportunities of work insertion by forming professionals with a high level of specialization. For the creation of this new proposal, different institutions were analyzed at a national and international level in order to know the trends and coincidences, as well as the different quality criteria implemented in each one of them. This was done with the objective of making room for the pertinence of programs as well as for the attention to the productive demands of our society in its different regions, having as a resonance the need for constructing environmental-friendly buildings which promoted a comfortable habitat for well-being, with the purpose of improving quality of life and with a more open tendency to the solution of urban-architecture-construction problems.

The 1st Week of Bioclimatic Architecture was organized, which is developed annually up to this day. In 2006, we held the 77th National Meeting of ASINEA. In 2007, we got the Certification with the Level 1 of the Interinstitutional Committees for the Evaluation of Higher Education (CIEES by its initials in Spanish) as a quality Study Program.  The project of the new facilities of the School of Architecture was developed within the University City by students and professors of our school and we started the management for its construction with our university authorities.

In 2007, the architect Álvaro Armando Sifuentes Valadéz was elected as the new Dean. He started the process of evaluation for the accreditation of our study program by the Mexican Council for the Accreditation of Architecture Teaching (COMAEA by its initials in Spanish). We got the mentioned accreditation in August, 2008. In the same year, the construction of the new facilities of the School of Architecture started in the University City and, in August 2009, the academic activities of the new building were started, implementing a continuous program in the creation, enablement and equipment of the specialized spaces to strengthen Information Technologies and Communications and at the same time the Academic Program: two training rooms enabled with 25 computers each, the transformation of  the “Milenio” room as a multimedia room, as well as projectors and screens in all the classrooms.

The mobility of students was promoted both nationally and internationally, which allowed to establish comparisons with academic pairs on the quality standards that regulate us and which in turn give feedback to our education processes.

Continuous education was impulsed by supporting professors to obtain scholarships to do a master’s degree or a PhD. We supported the participation of rapporteurs, both students and professors, in ASINEA conventions and National Congresses within the research activities of the Academic Body and their Lines of Generation and Application of Knowledge. Through federal supports which came from the Federal Program of Formation of Researchers (PIFI by its initials in Spanish), we consolidated: the Environmental Design Laboratory (LABDA by its initials in Spanish; the Multifunctional Workshop of Design and Center of Digital Cutting (TMD and CCD by their initials in Spanish), strengthening the innovation in education, acquiring specialized equipment and tools for these spaces. We also implemented extracurricular courses for students and for people with interests related to architecture, besides other specialized courses and workshops for professors and graduates.

In 2013, the architect Ricardo Valdez Cano became the Dean. In that same year, we obtained the re-accreditation of the study program by the National Accreditation Institution for Architecture Programs and Habitable Space Disciplines (ANPADEH by its initials in Spanish, previously known as COMAEA). We are currently working on the resulting recommendations of this process. The modality of distance education was implemented, offering our students to take some non-face-to-face courses directed by external specialists and professors.

In 2014, we implemented summer courses to advance courses, as well as study groups directed by high performance students. We implemented different external certifications. As an example we have the CENEVAL test as an option to obtain the degree and as an indicator of our quality education; the certification for professors in the different areas of knowledge; and the diverse competitions in which our students participate at a national and international level.

We also worked through the Academies, an indispensable organism in the continuous work and in the review of the study program. We started to work on a Curricular Reform based on the Humanistic-Constructivist education model in which we are immerse. In 2016, it was authorized and put into operation. In this way, a new generation started with the 2016 study program, where we integrated courses focused on research and courses updated through the use of Information Technologies and Communications and other technological resources. The 2016 plan has the particular feature of being 100% homologated with the Faculty of Architecture of the Saltillo Unit. Furthermore, it allows more flexibility as, for the first time, it will offer admissions in the month of January 2017. We are currently working on observations made by the National Accreditation Institutions and we have a greater rate of connection with the public and private sector. We are starting to have agreements with different private regional companies and national architecture firms of international importance for the completion of professional internships. We are focusing workshops and research work on the solution of problems which we have in our region so that our own students can offer solutions through their projects and dissertations. Students’ mobility increased in a higher percentage. We now have students who experienced academic exchange programs in institutions abroad and in national universities which are highly prestigious.