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The article aims to discuss the ambiguity of the need concept in architecture, and reasons for the existence of several strategies for dealing with need as an ontological and epistemological basis for architectural design. The paper systematizes the conceptualizations of need in architecture, provides a comparative analysis of its various interpretations and explains the differences between ideological, philosophical and theoretical viewpoints. A variety of meanings are analyzed using the author?s concept of ?paradigms of socio-architectural knowledge?. Five platforms of social knowledge can be distinguished in architectural theory, each of which relies on its own understanding of human beings and sees the content of human existence in its own way. Considered through the prism of the paradigms, different visions of the concept of need find their logical and methodological explanation. Each paradigm gives its own answer to who or what is the bearer and exponent of the need, and procedures for identifying needs in design. The paper presents ?stairs of needs? as a metaphor, ordering the range of possible actions of the architect in relation to the needs of the client - from obstruction and conscious deformation to satisfaction and phenomenological embodiment.

The concept of “environmental approach” in the theory of architecture, urban planning and design is usually used in the singular, but its content is often interpreted in different ways. Basing on the author’s concept of the “circle of environmental knowledge” and conceptual and terminological analysis of texts with an environmental focus, the author proves the necessity to speak about multiplicity of environmental approaches and considers the content and specific characteristics of seven enclaves of environmental knowledge and practice. The author describes the matter of each of them, connections with segments of environmental knowledge, and the design strategies under development. Due to the fact that the “design approach” has lost its singularity and ability to characterize the whole environment-oriented area of design, the usefulness of another umbrella concept for this is shown. The author demonstrates the necessity to choose the environmental “movement” as a concept that has a high degree of universality and tradition to be used in architecture to identify large fragments.

Basing on the analysis of the Federal State Educational Standards (FSES) and the legislative context of their development and approval, the post-reform history of the standardization of architectural education is viewed with the focus on the transformation of a qualification portrait of an architect as a set of the architect’s qualification characteristics. The article traces the evolution of standards of the last decade, the “age of FSES”. The national FSES of the bachelor degree of the “generation 3++” is compared with the UIA international standard of an architect. The author makes a conclusion whether it is practicable for Russia to use international principles and models of educational standards, the standards of architectural professional practice.