本课程透过学生个人的环境经验，经由观察、田野调查、测量或访谈等方式学习，学生们将提升对环境的感知力，并有能力对环境变迁予以演绎、归纳、提问和验证。本课程亦将引导学生将城市视为社会与心理的环境。以不同的都市环境与所衍生之人为价值观与使用之关连行为进行测量与试验。

本课程将协助学生了解并使用不同的图面技法，用以记录与传达实质环境、环境的印象与概念。课程是以＜工作室或田野调查＞的方式进行，并配合一系列的讨论分析与设计专案来执行。每个学生将面对一个环境，在其中进行观察、记录、分析与评估。案例研讨将增强学生感知环境的能力，并提升学生对环境演绎、归 纳、提问、验证的能力。选课的学生必须以素描簿或笔记本进行纪录，并将在学期中定期呈交。

将以案例研讨下列的主题：

• 基地与自然系统
• 公共空间与地方的塑造
• 基础设施的运输与循环
• 类型建立--单一与混合使用--填充

探讨的主题是：

1. 观察与诠释都市环境。利用步行与观察来研究场所的方法。如何从实质环境当中进行最佳的观察、辩证、理解与搜集线索。如何将汇整线索进而理解某个场所的故事与其背后的动能、建造时间和为谁而建。我们同时也将藉由实质与感觉指标探讨社会经济演变、趋势、问题、弱点、政策与准则等议题。
   
   
2. 以系统化方法操进行都市田野调查，并由探究及确认环境事件的发生以建立新的模式。我们将专注在人们如何感知环境、如何使用环境、在环境中人们期望会发生的事件。这方法不会强调缜密的资料搜集，而着重在连结不同的资料来源、假设、验证、清楚串连发现的线索进而导出可能的结果。理解城市的实质系统：尺度、纹理、街 廓、街道、区域、公共空间、基础建设与大自然。
   
   
3. 评估复合结构的方法，复合结构包含实质环境、感知、价值观、规划行为、设计专业、政府官员、顾客、媒体与不同的使用者。
   
   
4. 环境观察的记录、表达与交流的各种技巧。学习基础的图面语言，这些语言经由表达工具的使用，如：绘图、拍照、计算机模拟及计算机排版，可以进行环境的分析与设计。

The course is about learning through one's own personal experience of the environment, be it through observations, field surveys, measurements or interviews, the students will learn to draw on their own senses as much as on their ability to deduct, conclude, question, and verify. The course will guide the students to view the city as primarily a social and psychological environment. It will be concerned with measuring and testing various urban environments in relation to people' values and use.

The course will help students understand and use various graphic techniques to record and convey the built environment as well as their impressions and ideas about it. The course is set as a workshop/field survey environment through which a series of discussions analysis and design projects are carried out. Each student will engage in an environment that they will observe, record, analyze and evaluate. The case study will emphasize one's own ability to draw on her or his senses, as much as on the ability to record, deduct, conclude, question, and verify. Participants will be required to keep a sketch/note book which will be handed in periodically during the semester.

The following topics will be studied through the cases:

• Site and natural systems
• Public spaces and place making
• Infrastructure transportation and circulation
• Built-up typologies -- single and mixed use -- infill

Themes to be explored:

1. Observing and interpreting the urban environment. Methods of studying a place by walking and observing. How to best observe, diagnose, understand and gather clues from the built physical environment. How to piece together clues that tell the history and dynamics of a place, when it was built and for whom. We will also study what are the physical and sensory indicators of economic and social change, trends, problems, the notion of vulnerability, and policy and guideline issues.
   
   
2. Methods of systematically carrying out urban field surveys and the development of new modes of inquiry which explore and verify what is happening in an environment. We will focus on how persons perceive and feel about an environment, how they use it, and what they expect to happen there. The emphasis will not be on elaborate data gathering, but rather on relating different sources of information, hypothesizing, testing and articulating the findings to possible recommendations. Understanding the physical structure of the city - the scale, pattern and form of blocks, streets, districts, public spaces, infrastructure, and nature.
   
   
3. Ways to evaluate the plural structure of the built environment, the perception, values, and behavior of planning and design professionals, public officials, clients, media, and the different users.
   
   
4. Techniques of recording, representing, and communicating what is observed. Learning the basic graphic language of analysis and design through the use of representation of tools such as: drawing, photographing, computer modeling, and desktop publishing.