Classically, in order to design a project, architects use three types of skills: art, technique and function.

The vocation of the department is to train students to critically confront the challenges of the field of architecture (understood in the broad sense (building, urbanism and territory)). Future architects therefore have to identify the symbolic and usage values of space. To this end, the course programme covers philosophy, the history of architecture and the arts, urban, housing and art sociology, residential planning, qualitative and statistical research, economics and legislation.

The organisation of space is the projection of social relationships on the ground. A multidisciplinary, even interdisciplinary, knowledge is being built in order to understand this spatial organisation and to shed light on the practice of architecture and urban planning.

In this sense, the Unit's architectural research themes are oriented towards the upstream and downstream aspects of the design and production of space. Upstream, to develop methods that anchor the project in social, technical, artistic and cultural reality. And downstream, to ensure that the analysis and evaluation of architectural productions allow us to take a step back.

These fields of research are particularly aimed  at the reuse of industrial sites, new types of housing adapted to changes in society, and the enhancement of urban images and heritage from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.