Architectural Model

This pages starts as a response to a question on my home page, but just feel free to chip in in the usual way!!!

The Architectural Model

Here are a few thoughts about architect's models that may be of interest.

1. The WOW FACTOR!!!!

The first things that comes to my mind about (physical) models, as a 'building architect', is the sheer impact that models have in communicating, and even more so, selling an architect's design ideas: what I usually call the WOW Factor!! (Relates to the first sight of the model - it could be a great perspective drawing too - when either other students, teachers or the Clients walk into the room with the model!) Much more than diagrams, drawings and even modern computer modelling techniques a physical model is a great communication tool for architects. This must have something to do with the media of architecture: space, volume, even time, and the fact that even in a small way the 3-d model can capture something of these aspects.

2. The View from the Sky!!

Linked to point no.1 is the fact that most architect's physical models are seen from above, giving a view of the scheme that will generally never be seen once the building is built. The view from the sky can be so very different from the view from the street! Think about all those horrible tower blocks etc (they are not all horrible!) which probably looked great as 1:200/1:500 scale models from above but which we really experience at street and flat-balcony access level. The problem of models is that in these cases we are standing over the artifact whereas in built reality, the artifact is towering over us!

3. The Crafted Artifact

However, perhaps one of the most wonderful aspects of traditional architectural models is that the model itself is usually a thing of beauty, a crafted artifact that has been enjoyed by its maker and which can be appreciated by the observer: as your experience in Corsica.

4. The Model as Model

Even more so than drawings the built architectural model is a great tool for the designer too, forcing all the junctions and geometries of a building design to be confronted and hopefully well resolved in the final work.

I have a local colleague who is also a Cambridge-trained architect (very professional) who now specializes in traditional architectural models. He regularly works for an international London-based architect's practice who, although being very IT-based still require physical architectural models for the presentation and design evaluation of their work.

One of the advantages of specializing in models is that there is usually no real liability to be worried about and no professional indemnity insurance to be obtained. However, this doesn't mean no sleepless night! Models are often requested late in the design stage and require bursts of intensive accurate production activity in short periods of time. We both still do the occasional 'all-nighter' in order to keep our respective shows on the road!

-- MartinNoutch

Martin, I've just skimmed this and found it really helpful, thank you. Partly in confirming some very big differences between your kind of model and ours - I'll come back to that when I have more time from my "all-nighters". But also in suggesting for me new areas of analogy and perhaps some ways to turn immature DisciplineEnvy into a realistic aspiration for common bonds in true craftmanship. TomPeters may well be right in saying that "TheNerdsHaveWon". I think this means that we need authentic links with other disciplines, and thus with the history of human kind, more than ever.

-- RichardDrake

I just read something about how local oil exploration firms are using rooms with immersive computer models to analyze potential drilling sites. It would seem that something like this applied to building architecture would be superior to a physical model for everything except 3. You definitely get the WOW effect, you can get the view from the ground or the sky, and it can be a model as a model... plus you get a killer Quake level for free... -- JasonYip

He regularly works for an international London-based architect's practice who, although being very IT-based still require physical architectural models for the presentation and design evaluation of their work.

Could this be an example of pair architecting? -- DaveSteffe

I like it Dave. I begin to see pairs in all successful group responses to specification and design challenges. I remember those sessions, regularly chewing the fat on the changing goals and solutions for a complex, four year global evolutionary project in your office in Newbury, so well. For me those sessions are still an archetype of the kind of pairing we need, in addition to the very valuable PairProgramming pioneered by WardAndKent and popularized so effectively by Wiki. -- RichardDrake

Or 'pair architecturing'?

School Model

I'm presently designing a couple of extensions (I thinks that 'additions' in the US) to a primary school in Nottingham. As usual there are several design alternatives that are satisfactory and I have decided a traditional but not too detailed model will be very helpful, so my friend the modelmaker has been called in again.

The model will help us explore different massing studies for the new parts within the context of the existing building. Also, and very importantly, it will help our lay clients (the Headmistress and Governors) understand the proposals.

Based on previous experience the School might well ask to have the model for a while to let the children too see what is being planned. -- MN

I did mention Quake above but it never occurred to actually use the Quake engine to build an architectural model. Fortunately some one else did...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/education/newsid_982000/982346.stm

See also: GreatDesign, WowFactor, BigModels