Architectural typologies and their contribution to first-year students’ design process

Planning an architectural project represents an arduous mental process that combines various physical, social, environmental, economic, and technological variables in the attempt to reach the best possible result for an idea of future human inhabiting. In this context, university teachers face the challenge of developing appropriate teaching methodologies for first-year students to allow them to take a starting point for developing projects with appropriate criteria that generate feasible future instrumental lines to be applied in their academic and professional career. This article presents reflections and results related to the pedagogical strategies taught in the Architecture Workshop, which use architectural typologies to begin with the starting idea. To this aim, a work methodology is addressed as an urban housing project exercise that includes the study of the site, the analysis of a hypothetical owner, and the incorporation of theoretical-practical resources according to the choice of a specific typology. The results delve into the potential and difficulties of its use. It is concluded that the use of typologies contributes significantly to initial learning in our discipline, which makes this reflection essential throughout the project planning process.