The Free State Department of Architecture, is underpinned by the critical inquiry into the making of place. The school embraces a scholarly milieu for exploring the integrated aspects of the human ecological landscape [social, environmental, cultural and historical ecologies] and consequently promotes architecture that is addressing current aspects of sustainability, meaning and poetics. The depar
tment’s approach to the human ecological landscape is critical rather than normative, investigative rather than prescriptive, and process-orientated, rather than result motivated. Students are encouraged to investigate this multi-dimensional character of architecture in view of the different interrelationships between man [both as an individual and social being], the environment [natural and man-made], culture [local as well as universal] and time [historical and contemporary]. Through these different ecological interrelationships, regular design principles and form-giving elements are identified that prepare the student for local and international design - course. The academic discourse secures the development of a learning environment where students and academic staff are brought together through research [dedicated masters and doctoral programs], practice [site visits, annual design excursions and the UNESCO accredited Unit for Earth Construction] and teaching [the Free State Department of Architecture is accredited as an architectural academic institution by both the South African Council for the Architectural Profession and the Royal Institute of British Architects], and are at the same time challenged, taught, and supported in the spirit of place-making in the South African context.
