Background: Studio-based courses - the primary approach in design education--have been viewed as effective environments for learning. However, few studies have utilized an ecological lens to explore how the studio environment creates opportunities for social interaction through immersive studies of studio learning. Purpose: We engaged in an ethnographic case study of a beginning architecture design course aimed at exploring the ways the learning environment of the studio affords social interaction, and how these interactions shape students' understandings and behaviors as they learn. Particular attention was paid to the physical, structural, and instructional affordances that contribute to learning in the studio environment. Setting: We observed nine students and their instructor in Architecture Design 1 (AD 1), a first-year architecture studio at a large, public research institution over the course of one semester. Participants: The student participants ranged in age from 18 to 25, four of the participants identified as Students of Color, three identified as female, and six, male. The instructor, who identifies as female, taught AD 1 at the university for eight years prior to the study and holds a Master's degree in Architecture. Research Design: Our study utilized a qualitative approach. We view learning and knowledge as individually constructed by the learner in a socially situated, public context; as such, a case study design utilizing ethnographic methods of data collection were employed. Data collection and Analysis: Observations of daily studio activities participant interviews, researcher reflections on studio visits, and course artifacts such as the course syllabus and assignment handouts, were data sources used in this study. Data were analyzed using a two-cycle method of coding and analysis focusing on identifying patterns or themes in the data. Findings: We found several physical, structural, and instructional affordances that contribute to learning in the studio environment. The physical affordances of the studio environment of AD 1 included the open layout, public/private workspaces, and co-working in proximity to others. The structural affordances were long blocks of unscheduled work time, alignment between AD 1 and the other courses in the curriculum, the project brief, and the sequencing of the projects, tasks, and deadlines. The instructional affordances included formal and informal critique, "mini-lectures", and demonstrations. Recommendations: Although focused within a design discipline, the findings of our study can be used by broader audiences to create environments that support student learning. Recommendations include creating fluidity in the classroom space, centralizing feedback, demonstrating emerging understandings visually, and constraining constructivist learning environments.