The Foundation Studio forms the most significant and important teaching and learning experience in First Year architecture. It is deliberately formed as a year-long course because the complexities of architectural ideas and design thinking tend to be difficult to ingest and process within a single semester. The Foundational Studio hence forms nearly two thirds of the credit load for the year. In the studio students engage with a range of design projects that open up ways of ways of seeing, thinking and making ideas and things as well as bringing a foundation for key architectural concerns such as space, form, structure, materials and programme / function. Not all projects in the Foundation Studio arrive at a specifically architectural artefact (a building) but range from in-situ installations to students thinking through speculation and representing worlds made through the embodiment of ideas. Creativity, exploration, curiosity and a strong work ethic is key to success in the Foundation Studio. Representation (ways of communicating ideas) is part of the Foundation Studio and students will be required to develop and explore a range of skills from hand-drawing, to model making, to digital representation and thinking as part of the foundation studio course.

Founding ability to engage imagination, think creatively, innovate, and provide design leadership. Founding ability to gather information, define problems, apply analyses and critical judgement, and formulate strategies for action. Founding ability to think three dimensionally in the exploration of design. Founding ability to reconcile divergent factors, integrate knowledge, and apply skills in the creation of a design solution. Awareness of the links between architecture and other creative disciplines and their relevance and impact on architecture; of philosophy, politics, and ethics as related to architecture; of design theory and methods; of design procedures and processes; of design precedents and architectural criticism; and the beginning ability of the creative application of such work to studio design projects, in terms of their conceptualisation and representation. Founding ability to act and to communicate ideas through collaboration, speaking, numeracy, writing, drawing, modelling and evaluation. Founding ability to utilise manual, electronic, graphic and model making capabilities to explore, develop, define, and communicate a design proposal. Founding ability to develop a conceptual and critical approach to architectural design that integrates and satisfies the aesthetic aspects of a building and the technical requirements of its construction and the needs of the user.