Architectural Humanities 1 - Architecture in Settlements & Cities - YSA00005C

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Module summary

A foundational introduction to the evolution of architecture and building practices across diverse contexts and landscapes. The module explores architecture and the development of settlements and cities as creative, cultural and spatial practices, shaped by relationships between people, place, nature, arts, crafts, technology and changing socio-cultural and environmental conditions.

Professional requirements

Students studying this architecture degree will need to evidence a portfolio demonstrates a response to the RIBA themes and Values validation and that the course has 50% design components and 20% professional practice components

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2026-27

Module aims

In this module, you will build your knowledge of architecture through engagement, research and debate across lectures, seminars and practical activities. You will draw on related fields including art, history, culture, archaeology, nature, technology, philosophy and planning. The module is organised around three key themes that connect with areas of research expertise within the York School of Architecture. These will be explored through a sequence of lectures, seminars and practical activities, with contributions from invited experts who will introduce different perspectives and approaches to architectural enquiry.

Throughout the module, you will undertake thematic research, investigate precedents and case studies, develop made and drawn work, including models and other forms of architectural representation, and produce short critical and reflective pieces. These activities will progressively inform your Multimedia Essay, which forms the assessed coursework for the module. Your Multimedia Essay will bring these elements together as a coherent submission, integrating research, precedent studies, critical writing and practice-based forms of enquiry and representation.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

LO1_ Demonstrate awareness and appreciation for the role of architecture in history, exploring its art, craft, technology across different historic, social, and cultural contexts.

LO2_ Demonstrate a foundational understanding of contrasting and changing architecture and building practices, exploring responses to natural, socio-cultural, and technological forces.

LO3_ Review and evaluate the evolution of architecture and building practices in historic contexts, analysing the role of people, communities, arts and crafts in shaping their stylistic characteristics.

LO4_ Communicate thoughts, ideas, critical and complex contextual understanding via visual, verbal and written techniques.

Module content

ARCHITECTURE - SETTLEMENT - CITY

HERITAGE + CITY: how do we understand what we inherit?
DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS + PATTERNS: how do we record, represent and investigate it?
SUSTAINABILITY + COMMUNITY: how do people inhabit and transform it?

MULTIMEDIA ESSAY: how do I construct my own architectural argument connecting theory to practice?

This module is design around three interconnected thematic strands:

1. Heritage & the City
   How architecture, settlements and cities develop over time; how we read buildings as evidence; and what is inherited, preserved, altered and remembered.
2. Digital Environments & Patterns
   How architectural patterns, relationships and forms are recorded, represented, researched and communicated through drawings, maps, archives, models, images and digital practices.
3. Sustainability & Community
   How architecture relates to people, resources, ecology, power, everyday life and changing environmental and social conditions.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

Non-compensatable

Additional assessment information

MULTIMEDIA ESSAY [100%]

The Multimedia Essay will comprise a complete and coherent piece of critical research, bringing together complementary textual and practice-based elements. These elements should work together as an integrated submission, rather than as separate components. The exact requirements and weighting of elements will be clearly indicated in the assignment brief, with the precedent study forming a key focus of the assessment.

Research Tasks

• Research will progress throughout the semester, contributing to the definition and development of the Multimedia Essay in response to the themes, lectures, seminars and practicals. The presentation of this research will be defined in the assignment brief and may include, for example, a short report, paper/chapter analysis, sketchbook, mapping, or drawing panel.
• A made, drawn, mapped, or otherwise practice-based component is a required element of the submission and should contribute directly to the development and communication of the essay’s critical argument.

Essay

• 2300 words (+/- 10%).
• The Multimedia Essay should integrate written critical analysis with architectural drawings, illustrations, mappings, or other appropriate practice-based forms. These elements may contribute towards the equivalent word count according to their extent, complexity and critical contribution to the overall submission.

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

The module is delivered through themed packages of lectures, seminars and practicals. For each theme, students will develop relevant research tasks. These research tasks will progressively contribute to the development of each student’s individual Multimedia Essay. The tasks will be clearly defined in the assignment brief, which will identify key milestones throughout the semester for progress review and provide opportunities for formative feedback and advice towards the final Multimedia Essay submission.

The collective body of work will be submitted at the end of the semester.

Verbal and written formative feedback will be provided on interim submission, and summative written feedback will be provided on the final submission. Feedback will be returned in accordance with the University’s guidance.

Indicative reading

Core Texts

Awan, N., Schneider, T. and Till, J. (2011) Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture. Abingdon: Routledge.

Ballantyne, A. (2002) Architecture: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Borden, I., Fraser, M. and Penner, B. (eds) (2014) Forty Ways to Think About Architecture: Architectural History and Theory Today. Chichester: Wiley.

Ching, F.D.K., Jarzombek, M.M. and Prakash, V. (2017) A Global History of Architecture. 3rd edn. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Lucas, R. (2020) Anthropology for Architects: Social Relations and the Built Environment. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Rapoport, A. (2005) Culture, Architecture and Design. Chicago, IL: Locke Science Publishing Co., Inc.

Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge.

Unwin, S. (2021) Analysing Architecture: The universal language of place-making. Abingdon: Routledge.

Indicative Reading

Heritage & the City

Hayden, D. (1997) The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kostof, S. (1991) The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History. London: Thames & Hudson.

Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: SAGE.

Sengupta, T. and King, S. (eds) (2024) Reclaiming Colonial Architecture. London: RIBA Publishing.

Digital Environments, Mapping & Representation

Alexander, C. (1978) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford: Oxford University Pres.

Corner, J. (1999) ‘The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention’, in Cosgrove, D. (ed.) Mappings. London: Reaktion Books, pp. 213–252.

D’Ignazio, C. and Klein, L.F. (2020) Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lucas, R. (2016) Research Methods for Architecture. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Rendell, J. (2006) Art and Architecture: A Place Between. London: I.B. Tauris.

Rose, G. (2016) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. 4th edn. London: SAGE.

Sustainability, Ecology & Community

Cairns, S. and Jacobs, J.M. (2017) Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture. Mass.: MIT Press.

Cuff, D. (2023) Architectures of Spatial Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hawkes, D. (2012) Architecture and Climate: An Environmental History of British Architecture, 1600–2000. Abingdon: Routledge.

Liboiron, M. (2021) Pollution Is Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Till, J. (2009) Architecture Depends. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Yusoff, K. (2018) A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Architectural History & Theory: Further Reference

Bandyopadhyay, S., Lomholt, J., Temple, N. and Tobe, R. (eds) (2010) The Humanities in Architectural Design: A Contemporary and Historical Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge.

Banham, R. (1984) The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment. 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hawkes, D. (2020) The Environmental Imagination: Technics and Poetics of the Architectural Environment. Abingdon: Francis and Taylor.

Mallgrave, H.F. and Contandriopoulos, C. (ed.) (2008) Architectural Theory, Volume 2: An Anthology from 1871 to 2005: 02. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Smith, K.H. and Guitart, M with Eichelberger, N. (2024) Introducing Architectural Theory: Expanding the Disciplinary Debate. New York: Routledge.

Additional Resources

Abdelmonem, M.G. (2016) The architecture of home in Cairo. Routledge.

Abdelmonem, M.G. & Selim, G. (2019) Architecture, Space and Memory of Resurrection in Northern Ireland: Shareness in a Divided Nation. Routledge.

Brown, S. (1958) York: Art, architecture and archaeology

Fields, D. W. (2015) Architecture in Black: Theory, Space and Appearance. Bloomsbury.

Frampton, K. (2012) A Critical Architecture - Comments on Politics and Society

Lynch, K, (1960) The Image of the City

Kamel, E. (2010) ‘Conflicts of Identity, Conservation, and Cultural Heritage Meaning Management: Reading through ICOMOS Charters’. In: Constructing Intangible Heritage. Pp. 87-99.

Murrani, S. (2024) Rupturing Architecture: Spatial practices of refuge in response to war and violence in Iraq, 2003–2023. Bloomsbury.

Rasmussen, E (1959) Experiencing Architecture

Udall, Julia, Schwartz-Narbonne, R., Orlek, J. and Lacey, M. (2026). Snorkelling in Soil: Architectural Care for the Ground. In: Pedagogy as Creative Practice in Architecture: Inspiration and Resistance During Change. Routledge, 63-84.

Venturi, R (1977) Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

Zumthor, P (2006) Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects

Historic England Reports:

Historic England, (2018), Roman Settlements: Introductions to Heritage Assets

Historic England, (2018), Medieval Settlements: Introductions to Heritage Assets

Historic England, (2018), Enclosed Prehistoric Settlements: Introductions to Heritage Assets

Historic England, (2018), Prehistoric and Romano-British Settlements with Structures:

Introductions to Heritage Assets

Historic England, (2018), Oppida: Introductions to Heritage Assets

Historic England, (2018), Shielings: Introductions to Heritage Assets