The paper discusses the peculiarities of developing spatial-design thinking of future architects and determining the levels of its formation. The peculiarity of this work is in revealing the sequence of actions and operations of spatial-design thinking during the architect's training as well as applying the modified design-analog method suggested by the authors. The proposed method has a practical orientation. It does not contradict the methods used, and has a wider range of applications in comparison with traditional methods. The article discusses the prospects for the development of the proposed method.