CEPT Foundation Program

The CEPT Foundation Program is envisioned to achieve excellence in the skills, abilities, and capacities required by first-year students while ensuring that they also have a strong work ethic. The program is premised on the understanding that engaging with built environments requires an in-depth understanding of one's areas of expertise and the ability to dialogue.

Through four mandatory course components running simultaneously, the CEPT Foundation Program emphasizes the development of an ability to constantly challenge oneself to do better. Inspired by the motto, ‘Excellence is an art won by training and habituation,’ the Studio, one of the four key components of the program, takes the students through a series of exercises of increasing levels of complexity. It starts with the basics, and patiently build on the abilities to work with freehand and technical drawing, understanding and representing spaces in perspective, working with color and interpret styles.

Students learn to understand materials and structures and explore them through models. These skills build towards the development of critical thinking by working on data collection, analysis, and representation in a range of aspects of the built environment. Overall, the Program develops the ability to tackle complex problems in their environment, in each student.

The Studio encourages the expression of creativity, particularly as it transitions into the Field Studio. The latter offers a unique opportunity to visit a place with rich traditions and heritage, engage with its story, interpret it and bring to its representation the freshness of each student’s voice.

The two studios are interlinked with and complemented by ‘Reading Objects, Writing Craft,’ and ‘Perspectives’. The former sets the tone for the students’ engagement with key concepts in design, along with designers and designs which are considered classics.

‘Perspectives’ is an entry-point into the magic of other worlds: into dance, painting, and music; into science and the social sciences. ‘Perspectives’ disorients. Through a series of lectures delivered by artists, craftspeople, scientists and varied intellectuals, it brings to the students, a perspective to look at things as a starting point for engagement.

What makes the CEPT Foundation Program special is not only the skills, abilities, and knowledge developed, but the pace of learning. The students are encouraged to work intensively in the studio, to learn from each other and from the teaching team through ongoing feedback and support. The faculty identifies the strengths of each student and helps them focus on these. They also pay particular attention to students who find certain exercises difficult and provide additional support and a positive learning environment to overcome the difficulties. Results and comments are published and discussed frequently, to ensure that all are constantly aware of the level each student has reached and of the areas in which they need more effort and support.

The four course components are seen as essential parts of the development of foundational skills and abilities and are therefore mandatory.

Note: The teaching team provides coaching and support for all the students and pays close attention to each one’s needs. Those who are unable to meet the expected standards in any of the course components of the program, in spite of their efforts and the support provided, will have to exit the program at the end of the first semester, or at the end of the year.

Please read the CEPT Foundation Program Student Handbook for more details.