The thesis is situated within the debate on how to begin learning architecture, specifically, what types of exercises to use at the start of the first design studio course. As a starting point, three approaches are distinguished: first, professors who use projects from the very beginning; second, professors who believe that before starting project practice, students should understand and master a set of basic design and visual composition principles common to various artistic and design disciplines. The thesis examines a third possibility, which has been explored fragmentarily in certain teaching practices in recent years but has not yet been thoroughly researched. This involves workshop exercises specifically developed for teaching architecture that notably diverge from traditional architectural activity without resorting exclusively to visual composition tasks.
The hypothesis proposed is, on one hand, that these exercises are composed of networks of actions, interactions, knowledge, didactic tools, spaces, and times that internally facilitate the development of architectural knowledge and skills. On the other hand, the arrangement of their elements, their mechanisms of operation, and their objectives can be analyzed and understood through the adaptation of the concept of “device” to the initial pedagogy of architectural projects.