This paper describes the author’s academic investigations into domestic and foreign human settlement environment in the past 20 years, and shows the condition of research objects in the way of text and architectural sketches. The paper discusses academic perspectives from three sections. The first section is experience of inhabitation: the academic origin and its cognitive process. The author realized the splendor of the world’s architectural space and urban cultural sites from his study, going abroad and work experience. A book named “A Visiting Human Settlements of the World: Dr. Zhao Wanmin’s Architecture Sketches”, written in the author’s spare time, documents the author’s understanding of various urban and built environments during his study and visits in more than 20 years at domestic and abroad. The author has benefited a lot from this kind of comparative study and local experience, as different regions, cities or countries present distinct social, cultural, and folk customs. The second section is urban-architectural sketch: the academic and cultural literacy of researchers. As a kind of painting art, the urban and architectural sketch, is not only an expression of emotions, but also a record of time and space. It is not only a painting work, but also a historical material, and has substantially distinguishments between the simple painting arts. For urban and architectural sketches, in addition to the unity, structure, and artistry of the picture, the freshness, fluency, and sense of locality are also key expression contents. The creation of a good urban and architectural sketch will leave the researcher a deep special understanding and memory of the environment, and help the researcher understand the relationship between the cultural and ecological connotation of urban and architecture, and thus enhancing the researcher’s cognition of academic literacy and art knowledge. The last section is making trip further and reading a lot: the experience of human settlement environment and space. This section contains the author’s reflections on urban at domestic and abroad. The foreign parts include European countries such as Greece, Italy, France, Britain and Turkey, as well as Japan and Southeast Asia. The domestic part includes Chongqing and the Three Gorges area, the ancient town of Bayu, the minority communities in western Sichuan, and the cities and regions in the north and south of the country. Academic visits are both fun and hurried. Facing the rich and extensive cities and architectural museums, as a professional scholar, the author fully enjoys the comparative joy of traveling through different cities, folk customs, and architectural cultures, and the beauty of the living environment. The paper proposes that by investigating and comparing domestic and foreign history, culture, society, cities and architecture, scholars in architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture areas can improve their understanding of cultural forms in human settlements environment and architectural aesthetics, absorb academic nutrition, and finally apply the knowledge to work and practice of today’s urban and rural construction.