In a fading material culture, where societies have become far from making and only content with image approximations, architectural education, no exception, is suffering from the absence of visual, haptic, and hands-on knowledge. When pairing the knowledge of materials with its related issues of resource depletion, climate change, and waste, a new seed for teaching architecture is ready to be planted. This paper will focus on a profound distinction between two opposing design methodologies: a conventional method and an unconventional one tested in an architectural design studio environment and can be replicated, reused, and scaled to any architectural education programs worldwide. The aim of this study is to challenge the mainstream model of design in architectural education, provide a resource-based material culture, and highlight the role of design in mitigating climate change. Results shows that the understanding of the properties of materials, evaluating the economic and environmental aspects were critical to achieve the sought learning outcomes.