Initially the Jinan Urban Construction Engineering College set up by the former Ministry of Urban Construction in 1956, it was upgraded to a university for undergraduate education in 1958. Then it was successively renamed Shandong Institute of Architecture and Shandong School of Architecture. 

The university considers teaching quality as the lifeblood for it to survive and develop. In implementing a quality-oriented strategy, the university focuses on fostering creativity, ability of practice and employment competiveness of students by renovating educational philosophy, deepening teaching reform, standardizing teaching management and establishing the core role of teaching. The university concentrates great efforts on cultivating graduates with excellent academic performance, strong adaptability, high capability and superior competency.  

The university also pays much attention to discipline development, considering it a key to build the university's core competitiveness. By highlighting the advantage and feature of civil engineering and boosting the cross-development of conventional and emerging disciplines, the university continuously improves the mix of disciplines and the level of research and development and has developed a number of advantageous fields, such as civil engineering, urban planning and building design, intelligent buildings and building energy conservation.