AHT - Foundation Studio

The Foundation Studio trained students in core skills of architectural enquiry through the analysis of built environments and relevant archival material. Students learned to analyse architectural cues to understand transformation and investigate how architectural shifts are connected to wider transformative forces that have shaped our habitations at various points in time. The methodology of the studio involved rigorous architectural analysis (of spatial configuration, typology, materiality and aesthetics), overlaid with narratives of experience. This way the students learned to investigate the built environment as both site and process of inhabitation. The studio was organised in three modules which covered advanced architectural and visual documentation strategies, the analysis of archival material, developing the discipline of journaling observations and inferences, and constructing an argument using text and visual material. The modules were discrete and self-contained in terms of exercises, objectives and outcomes, but come together as a continuous process of inquiry through seminars and reflections sessions. We used the online semester as an opportunity to introduce students to digital methods of research in architectural history and the humanities more widely.