Detect VS Reveal. The survey as an investigative tool in the didactic experience of the architectural project

The aim of the contribution is to reflect retrospective on the experience developedwithin the Laboratory of Architectural Design I of the Bachelor of ArchitectureDesign course at the School (AUIC) of the Politecnico di Milano (Campus Piacenza).The teaching structure includes, in addition to the module of Architectural andUrban Composition (8CFU) and Architectural Design (4 CFU) a further module ofintegrative teaching of Representation Techniques (4 CFU) of ICAR/06. The aim ofthe latter is to provide students with the theoretical and operational informationnecessary for the survey and graphic representation of the architectural work and itsreference context. The Representation module recalls the important role assumedby the disciplines that form the background to the representation of the territorysuch as cartography, topography and photogrammetry and allows to acquiremethods and tools for framing, surveying and graphic representation, providing anindispensable support to the project research work.The experience reported concerns a specific context, three Mediterranean islands:Favignana, Sardinia and Menorca. The survey from above, with the drone, of theproject area allows the restitution of maps, to describe some thematic reports:- land/sea, through the threshold space of the coastline;- topography/topology, through the geographical palimpsest of the Mediterraneancontext;- typology/morphology, through the proposition of residential models according tothe tradition of Mediterranean live.The retrospective reflection questions how the new techniques of investigation andrepresentation of architecture and the environment flow into the project designexercise of the students at their first significant training experiences