ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the methodological background of a course called ‘Analysing Architecture’. The course has grown out of, and was conceived as a supplement to, studio-based design teaching. Its aim is to help students deal with the demands placed on them in their design projects by offering them ways in which they can ‘see’ — that is, order into a developing conceptual framework of thematic categories — how other designers have dealt with similar demands. Students are helped to understand architectural design, and thereby be better equipped to do it, by analysing the work of others in a structured way. The course extracts some of the underlying conceptual themes (intellectual patterns and strategies) evident in works of architecture, providing the beginnings of a framework for categorizing the powers of architecture as a creative activity. It aims to help students acquire a repertoire of seminal ideas that may be explored and developed in design, as a way of developing a personal but well-informed approach to architectural design. Students are encouraged to be autodidacts, to continue this process of ‘making sense’ of architecture for themselves. The objective is to produce professional architects intellectually equipped to continue increasing their understanding of the workings and potential of their discipline throughout their careers… maybe as exemplars for a ‘learning society’.
