Art of dumpster diving should be a first year prerequisite for all Architecture students. It comes in handy down the line.

But seriously, your youngins need very clear restrictions to kick start things. You are getting ahead of yourself. Pick three sites and have them choose one where they can design a single family house. Sounds boring, but wait for the results. weeeee half the class almost failed. 

"look beyond obvious" only works after you can recognize the obvious. Art of recognizing the obvious being the lesson you need to teach here. And art of dumpster diving.

Our first assignment was really great.  We got to pick one of 3 sites in a local park.  We were allowed to design anything we wanted, but it could only be 40'x40' max.  It also had to expose or engage nature in someway.  Some of the designs were shade structure pavilions that were shaped according to sun angles, someone designed a cool viewing platform that collected rainwater from a wash, another did a sunken plaza that flooded during rain seasons becoming a reflecting pool.  It was a cool project that allowed students to get as complicated or simple as they wanted, and to get familiar with some structures, natural constraints, site planning, landscape, materials, etc 

We did the housing thing in the second studio.  It would be hard to do this in the first studio because most students are still learning all the cad and modeling programs.

I agree with NOT rusty, the assignment seems too vague for first project.  In my opinion, you have to learn the rules first before you break them.  Our first year studio we were given specific sites to design approximately a 300 sq ft space.  Each site had a different make up - one was flat, one was a hillside, the other a canyon, etc.  So we learned how to deal with different site conditions while also taking baby steps in small and concise design ideas centered around an action word (ie: playing, running, sleeping, etc).  I also think another important part of first year studio is learning how to research - how to find case studies and information your are looking for; and eventually how to connect the dots to make your design make sense. 

As an intro to studio we did a >400sq.ft. tiny house designed around a ritual (reading, playing guitar, cooking, something the students are interested in). It forces the students to think conceptually about how their design relates to their ritual of choice beyond effectively organizing/designing a small space.

I pretty much agree with much of the above....teach early and often that it is the constraints that can encourage creativity.

Fellow first-year studio prof here. We start with something very simple to allow the students to familiarize themselves with the architecture studio environment. They generally begin by studying an existing environment through drawings and models (something like an existing building or part of campus). Then we begin to allow them to intervene in that environment by designing/redesigning some aspect of that environment.

Looking beyond the obvious is critical, but give them a clear framework for doing so. Freshmen students need clear boundaries in their projects, any that I've created without clear restrictions have generally not gone well, the students will get overwhelmed. Hope that helps and best of luck! 

The classic book on the topic is Hejduk's 'Education of an Architect' - a generation or two of architects were exposed to derivative projects influences by this book as their intro to architectural design. These days, hand drawing/model making seems to be giving way to other methods. Approaching architecture as art is a good start that I've been discussing with my colleagues.

U of MN starts their design sequence with students choosing a familiar household object, and then drawing it. Then they start abstracting the drawings, move into making models, and then drawing the models, ending up with some pretty complex graphics.

I've been inspired by Sergio López-Piñeiro's 'nect feature on 'how to do a thesis' for design foundations too. Also check out my blog post on design foundations