BMS College Of Architecture, Design And Planning, Bengaluru

BMS College of Architecture, Design and Planning in Bengaluru fills one B.Arch class through three separate gates, and each gate charges a different price. A COMEDK seat carried Rs 3,02,000 of tuition for 2026-27, the college's own management quota billed Rs 7,00,000 a year, and a seat allotted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority falls under the state's fee order instead. A national JEE rank on its own opens no door here, because this private, VTU-affiliated college takes no JoSAA seats. In NIRF 2025 it ranked 20th in architecture, the highest-placed institution from Karnataka.

BMSCA D&P, as the college abbreviates itself, is run by B.M.S. Educational Trust, and its 2026 AICTE mandatory disclosure names Dr. Vidya Srikanth as Director and Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi as the affiliating university (AICTE mandatory disclosure 2026). Its address on the Council of Architecture's register is the BMSCE Campus on Bull Temple Road, the campus of BMS College of Engineering (COA approved institutions, UG 2026).

The name is new. A notice congratulating the VTU rank holders of the 2020-2025 B.Arch batch carries the line "Formerly BMS College of Architecture" under the present name (VTU rank holders notice), and the college's NIRF filings show the switch: the 2025 submission is in the name BMS College of Architecture, the 2026 one in the name BMS College of Architecture, Design and Planning, both under the ID IR-A-C-57952 (NIRF 2025 data submission, NIRF 2026 data submission). The Ministry of Education's AISHE register records it as BMS College of Architecture, Design and Planning, Bengaluru, a private un-aided college affiliated to VTU.

It did not start as a college. COMEDK's profile of the institution says it began in 1980 as a Department of Architecture and was recognised as an independent College of Architecture in 2016 (COMEDK college profile), and the college's research page adds that its doctoral programme began in 2010 as a department of BMSCE before VTU recognised a separate research centre in 2017 (doctoral programme).

The trust runs a long list of BMS-named colleges, and three of them are the ones most often confused with this one:

• BMS College of Engineering, the far larger engineering college on the same Bull Temple Road campus, is counselled under its own code; KEA's 2025 PGCET cut-off sheet lists it as T998 and this college as T972 (KEA PGCET 2025 final-round cut-offs).
• BMS School of Architecture is a separate college at Yelahanka, COMEDK code E029 against this college's E189, and it ranked 37th in NIRF 2025 architecture (COMEDK architecture seats and fees 2026, NIRF 2025 Architecture ranking).
• B.M.S. College of Commerce & Management sits on the same list of trust institutions as both architecture colleges (B.M.S. Educational Trust).

The Council of Architecture's 2026 approved-institutions list still gives bmsce.ac.in, the engineering college's domain, as this college's website (COA approved institutions, UG 2026). Before trusting any grade or placement figure printed under a BMS heading, match it to the counselling code or NIRF ID that belongs to Bull Temple Road architecture.

Five programmes run at the college: the five-year B.Arch, a four-year B.Plan, a four-year B.Des in Interior Design, a two-year M.Arch in Habitat Design and a PhD in Architecture (BMSCA D&P). The Director's message describes B.Plan and B.Des as additions to the long-standing B.Arch, M.Arch and PhD (message from the Director), and the admission page gives each degree its own intake (admission procedure).

The M.Arch in Habitat Design is the oldest postgraduate course here, running since 2005 with an eight-week practical training between the second and third semesters (post-graduate programme). The B.Plan carries AICTE and Institute of Town Planners, India approval and two six-week internships, after the 4th and 6th semesters (B.Plan programme).

One B.Arch Seat, Three Prices

For B.Arch, the route in sets the price.

The management figure has climbed: the trust's schedule for 2024-25 put B.Arch at Rs 6,50,000 a year (management fee structure 2024-25). COMEDK prices B.Plan and B.Des at this college exactly as it prices B.Arch, Rs 3,22,000 including other fees, even though the trust's management rate for those two is Rs 2,00,000 against Rs 7,00,000 for B.Arch (COMEDK architecture seats and fees 2026, management fee structure 2026-27). A B.Plan or B.Des student who wins a COMEDK seat therefore pays more than one admitted on the management quota.

KEA's order does not name colleges by type, and it is written for engineering and architecture courses without a separate line for design or planning (KEA provisional fee structure 2026-27). The management instructions linked from the admission page, which are for 2024-25, added two costs on top of tuition: miscellaneous fees of roughly Rs 40,000 paid to the college, and hostel fees, which were not included (management admission instructions 2024-25).

Undergraduate intake at BMSCA D&P is divided between the state, a private consortium and the trust. The college's admission page sets the B.Arch and B.Plan split at 45% for KEA's CET quota, 30% for COMEDK and 25% for management, with the matrix subject to Government of Karnataka rules (admission procedure).

B.Arch

• KEA (CET code E-266). Candidates register in the Architecture Counselling section of KEA's site. KEA holds no entrance test of its own for B.Arch; it needs a qualifying score in NATA or JEE Paper 2 (admission procedure). Where two candidates tie, KEA orders them by NATA marks, then by mathematics marks in the qualifying examination, then by age (KEA UGCET 2026 information bulletin).
• COMEDK (code E-189). For 2026 COMEDK ranked architecture applicants on their NATA 2025 or 2026 score or their JEE 2026 Paper 2A score, whichever was better, with a Rs 2,000 application fee and registration between 22 June and 29 June 2026 (COMEDK architecture counselling notification 2026). The college's older UG admission page, written for 2020-21, still describes a 50:50 weighting of NATA and qualifying marks for COMEDK; the 2026 notification does not use it (UG admission page).
• Management quota. Fees are paid by demand draft, from a parent's account only, at the office of the trust's Director (Admissions) in the Platinum Jubilee Block of the BMSCE campus (admission procedure). A NATA qualification was compulsory for B.Arch management seats in the 2024-25 instructions, and a cancelled management seat was refunded less Rs 10,000 processing fees (management admission instructions 2024-25).

Eligibility on the admission page follows the Council of Architecture's 2020 minimum standards: 45% in physics, chemistry and mathematics and 45% overall in Class 12, or a 10+3 diploma with mathematics at 50% (admission procedure).

B.Plan and B.Des

The two four-year degrees take different exams through each gate, both have a college-run entrance test for candidates outside the counselling pools, and the college's own pages do not always agree with the counselling bodies.

• B.Plan. The programme page asks for 45% in Class 12 with mathematics (40% for SC, ST and OBC) and a K-CET, COMEDK or JEE Paper 2B attempt (B.Plan programme). COMEDK builds a separate B.Plan rank list from JEE Paper 2B scores only (COMEDK architecture counselling notification 2026). For non-CET and non-COMEDK candidates the college scheduled its own B.Plan entrance exam for 10th August 2026 at the Bull Temple Road campus, with registration closing on 7th August 2026 (B.Plan entrance exam poster).
• B.Des (Interior Design). Any Class 12 stream qualifies. The programme page says the college admits on a merit list from its own internal entrance examination until a state-level design aptitude test exists (B.Des programme), and the admission page links a registration form for a B.Des entrance exam, though it posts no exam date. The same page lists KEA's CET and COMEDK's UGET as the government routes (admission procedure), while COMEDK itself ranks B.Des applicants with B.Arch ones, on NATA or JEE Paper 2A (COMEDK architecture counselling notification 2026).

KEA counsels both degrees in its engineering stream rather than its architecture stream; they appear on its 2026 engineering cut-off sheet, not the architecture one (KEA UGCET 2026 engineering cut-offs, round 2).

M.Arch and PhD

M.Arch applicants need a B.Arch with at least 50% and a GATE or COA PGETA qualification, and can enter through PGETA, through KEA's PGCET, or through the management quota with a GATE, PGETA or PGCET score (admission procedure). An older PG admission page, which still links KEA's 2018 PGCET brochure, sets the SC, ST and Category-I floor at 45% and says management-quota M.Arch candidates are selected by an admissions committee through interviews under VTU rules (PG admission page). Doctoral admission follows VTU's PhD regulations, and the college names five recognised supervisors on its admission page (admission procedure).

Both counselling bodies publish closing ranks for BMSCA D&P, college by college and round by round. KEA's architecture ranks and COMEDK's ranks come from separate applicant pools, so a number on one list tells you nothing about the other.

On KEA's round 2 architecture sheet, the general-merit close of 69 was the lowest rank of any college listed, ahead of R. V. College of Architecture at 82 and the MSRIT school of architecture at 134 (KEA architecture cut-offs, round 2). The same sheet carries category closes for this college too, 89 for 3AG and 287.5 for 1G among them.

The B.Des and B.Plan numbers from KEA look far higher because they sit on KEA's much longer engineering list, not because those seats are harder to reach than B.Arch. COMEDK's B.Arch close moved from 285 after round 3 to 384 after round 4, a later rank that usually reflects seats surrendered in one round and re-allotted in the next (COMEDK after round 3, COMEDK after round 4).

For the M.Arch, KEA's PGCET 2025 final-round sheet lists Habitat Design at T972 with a dash in every category column (KEA PGCET 2025 final-round cut-offs), and for PGCET 2026 KEA posted its first-round option entry link for M.Tech, M.Arch, MBA and MCA on 11-09-2026 (KEA PGCET 2026). Management seats are filled by the trust and carry no published rank.

The dated placement record for BMSCA D&P is in its NIRF filings. The 2026 submission covers B.Arch batches graduating from 2022-23 to 2024-25, and the 2025 submission adds 2021-22 (NIRF 2026 data submission, NIRF 2025 data submission).

The B.Arch median rose by about half over those four batches. With only 8 or 9 M.Arch graduates a year, a single hire shifts that programme's median. Habitat Design has not left a graduate unplaced in the three batches the NIRF 2026 filing reports; its median climbed from Rs 4,80,000 to Rs 7,20,000 and eased back to Rs 6,00,000 for 2024-25 (NIRF 2026 data submission).

For a sense of scale within Bengaluru, the architecture school at M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology reported a B.Arch median of Rs 2,52,000 for its 2023-24 batch, against Rs 4,20,000 here (MSRIT NIRF 2025 architecture submission).

BMSCA D&P names no highest package on any placement material it publishes. The placement cell page describes annual placement sessions and links out to a placement brochure and a recruiter list (placement cell); that brochure profiles graduating students one by one and lists employers, but quotes no package. The recruiter list names 27 organisations, all but three of them in Bengaluru, including Balan and Nambisan Architects, Mahan Architects, Total Environment and Atkins Realis (recruiter list).

The split on the admission page turns into seat counts once KEA and COMEDK publish their matrices.

Only 17 of the 44 seats in KEA's Rest of Karnataka B.Arch row are open general merit; the others are spread across reserved categories and Kannada-medium and rural quotas (KEA architecture seat matrix 2026). The B.Des seat table on the admission page shows only CET and COMEDK shares, with no management column, although the same tab still describes direct admission through the management quota (admission procedure).

Demand differs sharply between the three degrees. COMEDK's list of vacant seats after round 4 decision-making, dated 13.09.2026, shows 1 B.Arch seat still open here against all 9 B.Des and all 12 B.Plan seats (COMEDK architecture vacant seats after round 4). On KEA's side, three B.Arch seats were unfilled before its third round, one each in general merit, 3BG and ST (KEA architecture seats before round 3).

B.Arch has filled close to capacity for years. NIRF filings show 116 admitted against 120 in 2017-18, a full 120 in each of the next two years and 118 in 2020-21, while the M.Arch, sanctioned at 20, admitted 8 in 2021-22, 10 in 2022-23 and 11 in 2023-24 (NIRF 2025 data submission, NIRF 2026 data submission).

Of the 40 schools NIRF ranked for architecture in 2025, this college came 20th with 58.10 (NIRF 2025 Architecture ranking). Only two entries in that top 20 carry a college-type NIRF ID, the C in IR-A-C, and the other is College of Engineering Trivandrum at 15th; every other top-20 ID is a U.

Its overall score went from 50.61 in 2019 to 58.10 in 2025 while the rank slid as low as 23rd, over years in which the table itself grew from 15 ranked institutions to 40 (NIRF 2019, NIRF 2024). Research and professional practice held the score down throughout. A score of 0.01 in 2019 and 2020 had grown to 13.91 by 2025, still fourth-lowest of the 40, with only APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University's architecture faculty, Amity University and Anant National University below it (NIRF 2025 Architecture ranking). The money is modest. Sponsored research brought in Rs 15,75,000 across five projects in 2024-25, and consultancy another Rs 7,57,500 across seven, according to the NIRF 2026 filing (NIRF 2026 data submission).

Perception lifts it instead. Its 59.73 on perception was the seventh-best score of the 40 in 2025, every one of the six above it a centrally funded school or a state university, and it sat far above the 37.36 of Manipal School of Architecture and Planning, the next Karnataka entry (NIRF 2025 Architecture ranking).

BMSCA D&P publishes no department list. Its academic work is organised by programme and by a handful of named roles and units instead:

• Design chairs: Ar. Mukesh G Kotak for undergraduate studios, associated with the institution since 1995, and Ar. Bijoy Ramachandran, co-founder of Hundredhands, for postgraduate studios (design chairs).
• Programme leadership for the newer degrees: Dr. Tanuja K C leads both B.Plan and B.Des, with Dr. Leena Thombre coordinating B.Plan and Dr. Yogita Nagpure coordinating B.Des (B.Plan and B.Des admission flyers).
• The VTU-recognised Research Centre, whose research advisory committees the Director chairs, and which lists nine doctoral scholars by name while stating a count of 10 elsewhere on the same page (doctoral programme).
• A Consultancy Cell led by Prof. Channabasavaradhya K.B., which names BBMP and the Karnataka Housing Board among its clients (consultancy).

The college's buildings are compact. A July 2020 area statement gives three blocks of 2714, 2536 and 2200 sqm, 7450 sqm of built-up space in all, holding 13 studios and a set of lecture rooms (campus details).

The labs page runs from acoustics, climatology and illumination labs to a survey lab, a material testing lab, a plumbing and sanitation lab, a construction yard, a material museum and a material library laid out in zones for electrical, HVAC, firefighting and glazing systems (labs and workshops). The innovation lab holds two laser cutters, Pramaan 300 and Makerbot Replicator+ 3D printers, and A0 and A1 plotters, and the computer lab lists Revit, Archicad, ArcGIS, QGIS and Twinmotion among its software.

The library holds over 12,000 titles and more than 50 print journals (doctoral programme), offers off-campus access to its resources from outside the college network (library), and is open from 8 AM to 8 PM according to the B.Des page (B.Des programme). Rs 44,40,034 went on library resources in 2024-25, about half as much again as the Rs 29,28,724 spent two years before (NIRF 2026 data submission).

Sports facilities in the college's AICTE disclosure include a seven-a-side football ground of 2,400 sq. mts, two volleyball courts and a multi-station gym (AICTE mandatory disclosure 2026), and the facilities page shows the BMS multi-speciality hospital, an Indian Bank branch and ATM, cafeterias and an indoor sports complex (other facilities).

Boys' and girls' hostels both appear on COMEDK's profile of BMSCA D&P (COMEDK college profile), the college's facilities page shows a hostel facility and a BMSETH mess (other facilities), and the 2026 programme brochure describes hostel blocks both on the campus and close to it (programme brochure 2026). The need is real: the NIRF 2026 filing counts 298 of 566 B.Arch students from outside Karnataka and 13 from outside India (NIRF 2026 data submission).

What a room costs is not on bmsca.org. The 2024-25 management instructions say only that hostel fees sit outside tuition (management admission instructions 2024-25), and neither the facilities page nor the brochure gives a rate, a room type or an allotment rule, so a family has to ask the college office listed under Contact & Location before budgeting.

The NIRF 2026 filing names 118 teachers who worked at the college across its reporting period, and counting those still marked as working gives 69: 48 regular, 12 visiting, 8 adhoc or contractual and one listed as other (NIRF 2026 data submission). Visiting faculty account for 47 of the 118 names, and 35 of those 47 had already left by the time of the filing. Eleven of the current teachers in that filing hold a PhD, and the research page puts the college-wide count of doctorate holders at 12 (doctoral programme).

The same filing names Dr Mamatha P Raj as Director, a faculty member since 16-08-1990 (NIRF 2026 data submission), and COMEDK's profile and the COA postgraduate list still show her as head (COMEDK college profile, COA approved institutions, PG 2026). The college's website, its 2026 AICTE disclosure and COA's undergraduate list name Vidya Srikanth as Director (message from the Director, COA approved institutions, UG 2026).

Recognised PhD supervisors listed on the research page are Dr. Shobha M N and Dr. Tanuja K C in urban and regional planning, Dr. Lekha Hegde in climate-responsive architecture, Dr. Dakshayini R. Patil in inclusive urban design, Dr. Leena Thombre in urban planning and design and Dr. Naveen Kishore Khambadkone in bioclimatic architecture (doctoral programme).

The college names seven alumni on its homepage: Ar. Gayathri Shetty of Gayathri and Namith Architects, Ar. Bijoy Ramachandran of Hundred Hands, Ar. Anup Naik of Urban Frames, Ar. Sujit Nair and Ar. Aruna Sujit of SDeG, Ar. Sandeep Jagadeesh of Architecture Paradigm, and Ar. Raghavendra Shanbhag of WATG in Singapore (BMSCA D&P). Its alumni achievements page adds that Gayathri and Namith Architects won an award at the World Architecture Festival 2025 for Lone Lung Space, and that Ar. Kavita Sastry received an Arcasia silver medal for restoring the Government Kannada Higher Primary School at Murphy Town (alumni achievements). The alumni association reports over 1,500 members (alumni).

Recent items from the college's own news feed:

• The 2020-2025 B.Arch batch took all top 10 VTU ranks, with Avanee G as gold medallist (news).
• M.Arch Habitat Design student Vadiraj Chandrakant Kulkarni won a VTU gold medal, and Abhinav Prakash Karennavar was placed in the global top 50 of the Tamayouz graduation projects award 2025, chosen from 949 entries (news).
• Third-year students Annam Nimra and Shalvika Halli were second runners-up at Archumen 2026, Southern Interface, held at the college (BMSCA D&P).
• The NASA India unit finished 2nd for the Le Corbusier Trophy in the association's 66th year and 8th in its 67th (NASA unit).

Among Bengaluru architecture colleges, the 2026 counselling ranks and NIRF 2025 table put BMSCA D&P in a small leading group with R. V. College of Architecture.

R. V. College of Architecture edged it on COMEDK's round 3 list while BMSCA D&P led on KEA's, and the two charged the same COMEDK fee of Rs 3,22,000 (COMEDK architecture seats and fees 2026). The Yelahanka school with the BMS name closed well behind both on each list.

BMSCA D&P sits inside the BMSCE campus on Bull Temple Road in Basavanagudi. College enquiries and management-quota admissions have separate phone lines and email addresses.

The college keeps its admission-enquiry desk open on Saturdays from 9.30 am to 4.00 pm (BMSCA D&P), while the trust's management admission office closes on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays (admission procedure).

At a glance

Quick facts