The present paper examines, in a case study format, the use of films, short films and audiovisual documentaries as reasoning and references for design assignments during the first years of an architectural degree course. The aim of this fruitful and comparable experience is not so much to study and verify the well-known synergies between film and…

"Form is 'what', Design is 'how'" (Kahn, 1960). Learning about the formal universe and the wide range of possibilities it offers should be one of the purposes of the early subjects in architectural studies. This article aims to explain the contents of a first course of architectural design and demonstrate how, using a methodology based…