Contextual Explorations Through the City: Short Stories from the Architectural Design Studio

Through various taught design projects the author has explored a variety of linked contextual analysis techniques within the architectural design studio and has used this paper to catalogue and record these teaching processes. This paper documents the contextual analysis techniques deployed by presenting these in a structure of decreasing scale: firstly, analysis of a city – San Jose - before moving on to discuss analysis within a city district – the Merchant City area in Glasgow - and finally concluding by presenting a project focused on one specific location – a humble street corner, again in Glasgow. When important to do so, the paper will cross reference the experiences of various year groups and demographics within the same contextual analysis technique, highlighting patterns and trends in aptitude for analytical responses to context which remain consistent despite the author visiting these processes with students across different year groups.