This paper reflects on experience gained through MARS (Making Architecture Research Studio) at the University of Nottingham. It argues for a densification of design teaching and learning through a direct, practical and tactile engagement with materials and making. It sets out the pedagogical benefits of exploring and theorising the practical, combined with the value and relevance of material practices. As a methodology of design teaching it suggests a multi-level, synergistic approach to pedagogy and practice that can build key knowledge and skills while avoiding a narrowly instrumental view of architectural education and practice. A key aim of the pedagogy of the studio is the development of an empathetic imagination, as clearly articulated by William Hazlitt (1805) in An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: