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 developed within the Laboratory of Architectural Design I of the Bachelor of Architecture Design course at the School (AUIC) of the Politecnico di Milano (Campus Piacenza). The teaching structure includes, in addition to the module of Architectural and Urban Composition (8CFU) and Architectural Design (4 CFU) a further module of integrative teaching of Representation Techniques (4 CFU) of ICAR/06. The aim of the latter is to provide students with the theoretical and operational information necessary for the survey and graphic representation of the architectural work and its reference context. The Representation module recalls the important role assumed by the disciplines that form the background to the representation of the territory such as cartography, topography and photogrammetry and allows to acquire methods and tools for framing, surveying and graphic representation, providing an indispensable 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 the project 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 Mediterranean context; - typology/morphology, through the proposition of residential models according to the tradition of Mediterranean live. The retrospective reflection questions how the new techniques of investigation and representation of architecture and the environment flow into the project design exercise of the students at their first significant training experiences