The foundation studio trains students in core skills of surveying and analysing historic built environments. Students learn to observe and document a selected site, work with different modes of representation, and analyse different architectural attributes of lived historic environments. Following these exercises, the students produce a timeline of architectural transformation. The larger intention is to introduce and train students to investigate how architectural shifts are connected to wider transformative forces that have shaped our habitations at various points in time and how they may be framed as sites of historical significance. The studio takes as its starting point that built environments - cities, neighbourhoods, market places, housing sites, industrial landscapes, to name just a few - are embedded in the larger networks of relationships. The methodology of the studio, which is also the central set of skills and abilities the studio aims to inculcate in the students, involves rigorous architectural analysis (of spatial configuration, typology, materiality and aesthetics), overlaid with narratives of people’s experiences. This way the students learn to investigate the built environment as both site and process of inhabitation.
