Model Making

MELISSA JACOBS

MODEL MAKING

CONTENTS

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02

08

INTRO

FOAM

WOOD

Hand-Cutting Hot Wire-Cutting

Hand-Cutting Machine-Cutting Laser-Cutting

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26

TEXTILE

ACRYLIC

3D PRINT

Hand-Cutting

Laser-Cutting

Digital Modeling

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Architecture is one of the many professional fields that has transitioned from physical design practices to predominantly digital mediums within the last few decades.

Architecture curriculums and professional firms have adapted to these new digital tools, applying them to the many steps of the design process - a stark transition from using the traditionally physical design methods of model-making to mostly digital practice.

Architecture curriculums have essentially replaced design elements such as hand drawings and modeling with digital programs like AutoCAD, Sketchup and Rhino. This progression into the world of digital design has created incredible new tools and opportunities to develop innovative solutions, the values of which cannot be denied, but the merits of traditional architectural practices should not be forgotten or overlooked.

A certain language and intention is communicated through the use of a successful model - one that does not exist in the digital world. One of the advantages of physical modeling is its accessibility; human beings have a rudimentary tendency to create things with our hands, feeling and molding a form to our liking, whether thats the way we design architecture, or the way we create art, prepare food, the way we dress - in all the ways in which we decide to express ourselves. The origins of an architectural model can start anywhere: a draped piece of fabric, a folded piece of paper, even a collection of household items. This raw, natural expertise is lost when we separate ourselves from our work with digital boundaries. Material, scale, and texture are all elements that are felt and understood in the physical world, but essentially disappear behind a screen. A tangible model can be stretched, pushed, broken apart, and put back together again, all using one’s own hands. This language presents a valuable opportunity for designers to more effectively develop and represent design intentions. Fault and experimentation are crucial parts of the model-making and overall design processes - mistakes made while designing can often provide some of the most effective inspiration for developing one’s ideas. While digital models are often made after a design concept is already finalized, using a variety of model-making techniques can become a crucial part of the design process, allowing for more experimentation and understanding of one’s own design intentions.

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The efficacy and significance of physical models is apparent to many architecture students and professors, even as curriculums shifts towards a more dominantly digital practice. Models provide a unique environment for both professors and students to discuss and workshop designs in a hands-on approach. Professors can move and adjust parts of the model, not just making verbal comments on the student’s work, but visually changing what it is that they might want to see changed. This ability to manipulate a model makes discussions between professors and students much more effective, whereas a digital model is stagnant, without that same ability to easily move or shift elements.

Instead of showing professors or critics a working model, one that can be looked at from infinite angles, students are often confined to showing specific perspectives or views - this often creates a disconnect between what the student sees and what the professor or critic sees.

Despite the advantages provided by model-making, many students still reject it as a part of their design process, and especially as a part of their final deliverables. Final critiques in architecture are exceptionally stressful for many students, and sometimes these physical models add unwanted additional stress to that workload. Considering that many students are required to pay for their own model-making materials, and that many do not find the same value in model-making as others, it is understandable that this strategy is taxing for numerous students. Rather than emphasize the model as a final product that accurately represents a student’s final design, professors and curriculums should encourage model-making as an experimental phase of the design process, allowing for more time to develop a student’s ideas and their final presentation.

As models become even less relevant as COVID-19 has forced many students off campus - where model-making is nearly impossible - it is crucial to understand the value of physical models in the professional realm of architecture, as well as their value throughout the design process as a means of investigating different forms, materials, and compositional strategies. As this art form becomes less dominant in architecture curriculums, it is imperative that we re-evaluate the utility that these models can offer to students and designers. This art form provides an incredible opportunity for students to better understand and communicate their own work, and should be encouraged in order to preserve its traditional values as an architectural language, but also to help students develop their own design workflow.

The following chapters will investigate and demonstrate the potential of several different model-making materials and strategies, particularly how they help to communicate design intentions, as well as aid in the design process itself.

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The Window House / FORMZERO

FOAM

MATERIAL

TOOLS

FOAMCORE / STYROFOAM / FLORAL FOAM / SCRAP FOAM

UTILITY BLADE / X-ACTO BLADE / RABBET CUTTER / HOT WIRE CUTTER

TECHNIQUE

PROPERTIES

Foam is often the first model-making material introduced to architecture students, and remains a material of choice for many for its accessibility and versatility.

Foam can be used to create conceptual forms, as well as more detailed and accurate models, through the rendering of walls, floors, roofs, apertures, and smaller elements like furniture and scale figures.

Thick pieces of styrofoam or floral foam can be cut with a utility blade or a hot wire cutter to make very quick massing models.

Thinner sheets of foam core (the most common material used by architecture students) can be easily cut to the shape of more intricate walls and holes, using an X-Acto blade or utility knife. Foamcore can also be scored with a knife or rabbet cutter to create bends, corners, and even curves.

SOFT / POROUS / UNIFORM / ACCESSIBLE

VOCABULARY APERTURE - an opening, hole, or gap - like a window or door MASSING - the form, shape, and relationship of a mass to its counterparts or lack thereof FACADE - the face or front of a building; the outside LET ME KNOW IF THERE’S OTHER VOCAB YOU SEE THAT MIGHT NEED EXPLAINING THROUGHOUT THE BOOK

Gyre “The Swirl” / MVRDV

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Faena Forum / OMA

The Faena Forum is a bold, mixed use venue designed by Rem Koolhaas and the team at OMA, offering a wide variety of programs including two grand exhibit halls, a rose marble ampitheater, and a public plaza on the ground floor. For this particular design, a large, foamcore model was used to communicate program throughout the building. The choice to create a sectional model - a model that is essentially cut in half so that you can see into the architecture - is very advantageous because it allows for a better understanding of just how many mixed-use spaces there are in this building, but also how these spaces intereact with one another and create visual connnections through the building. For example, the viewer can understand just how large the theater is on the third floor, not only in width along the building, but also in height. It is clear that views are created from one side of this building all the way to the other. Foamcore is the material of choice for this model, because of its accessibility but also its flexibility. The foam can be easily cut to communicate the many apertures that are seen throughout the interior and facade, and is also the appropriate color and texture to represent the final product.

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TIT Creative Park / Atelier cnS

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Pittman Dowell Residence / Michael Maltzan

Because of the abundance and accessibility of foamcore, it can also be used to create site topographic models. These types of models are created by layering thin, varying-shaped sheets of material on top of one another in order to communicate the shape and surface features of a design’s contextual site. These topographical models make it a lot easier to understand how your design interacts with the nearby land, specifically how the elevation changes across the site with natural hills, valleys, and even artificial features including walls and stairs.

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The Floating Pedestal / atArchitecture

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2 08

WOOD

atelierordinaire

MATERIAL

TOOLS

BALSA WOOD / BASSWOOD / PLYWOOD / DOWELS / SCRAP WOOD

BAND SAW / CHOP SAW / SANDER / UTILITY BLADE

TECHNIQUE

PROPERTIES

Wood is one of the most versatile model-making materials used to communicate form, opacity, permanence, and the many other more nuanced details of an architectural design. Wooden materials can come in many forms, including solid studs, plywood, small dowels, or even small pieces of scrap wood, each fulfilling a variety of responsibilities in their communicative value. Solid cuts of wood might be cut using equipment like a band saw or chop saw, and sanded into a clean form to be used as a conceptual massing model. Plywood can be cut similarly with wood shop equipment and used as a sturdy base or foundation to a model. Dowels of varying shapes and sizes can be used for more intricate details on large, final models.

HARD / POROUS / VARIABLE / ACCESSIBLE

VOCABULARY DOWEL - a thin rod made often of wood, plastic, or metal; can come in shapes including square and circular PROGRAM - the activities that will take place in a space; functionality

atelierordinaire

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HA Tower / Frontoffice + Francois Blanciak

In order to effectively study and communicate the volumetric characteristics of this particular design, the team at Frontoffice and Francois Blanciak Architects chose to use thick, repeating blocks of wood to abstractly represent the different floors of this urban residential tower. One of the intentions of this building’s design was to encourage public, outdoor space for residents, which is created between the residential floors of the tower.

In this model, this space is communicated through the vast contrast between the light, open space occupied only by thick wire, and the heavy, opaque volumes of wood.

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Shelter Factory / Allen Plasencia

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Alternative Housing Competition / CST

This particular model is a study of a housing development project by The Center for Spatial Technologies for the Alternative Housing Competition. Not only is the large base made from a sheet of plywood, the blocks are made from light wood blocks, and the flooring details are made from thin sheets of wooden board. The blocks are each painted with unique shades of pink paint, a strategy often used in model-making to distinguish between different types of programs within a design.

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Canada Square Pavilion / William Matthews Associates

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TEXTILE

Garage Pavilion / KOSMOS Architects

MATERIAL

TOOLS

PAPER / FABRIC / MESH

UTILITY BLADE / X-ACTO BLADE / SCISSORS

TECHNIQUE

PROPERTIES

Architectural textiles tend to be more situation-specific modeling materials, often used to represent the materiality of a design’s final product. Textiles like fabric or mesh are often used to communicate a building’s exterior facade, or specific elements like canopies. These surfaces are often very thin, and quite flexible. These types of materials are becoming more and more popular in architectural design as high-tech fabrics and smart textiles become more applicable for smaller scale installations and highly engineered solutions. The textiles materials themselves are often cut by hand using an X-Acto blade or utility blade.

FLEXIBLE / PERMEABLE / VARIABLE / ACCESSIBLE

VOCABULARY OPACITY - lacking transparency; impenetrability

Cycling Center / We Are You + Erik Hallberg

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Student Work

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Aviary at Bujalcayado, Guadalajara / Leyre Mauleón Pérez,

Two students enrolled at the Madrid School of Architecture won the “Macro Architecture” section of the “Textile Structures for New Building” competition organized

by Techtextil, made to showcase high-tech fabrics and smart textiles. This particular design aims to create a beautiful and interactive shelter for a variety of bird species amid abandoned constructions in Sigüenza, created using tight structures woven with optic fiber. The lack of opacity of this material accurately represents the see-through nature of the final design’s atmosphere, while the flexibility and tension in the fabric equally reflects the lightly sheltered intention behind the structure.

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Brazil Pavilion / Studio Arthur Casas + Atelier Marko Brajovic

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The Catenary and the Arc / Manuel Bouzas + Santiago del Auila

Insolit is a festival of temporary installations on the Spanish Balearic Islands aiming to celebrate the cultural heritage of the area through public art installations within the capital city of Palma. This project’s intention is to reflect historical elements of nearby architecture using these reversed arched shapes, dipping into the central courtyard and closely interacting with viewers. The actual structure is made up of hanging steel meshes, filled with bright plastic cups to project warm light throughout the space. This effect is easily communicated and understood through the creation of this model, using the bright pink mesh to reflect the bright canopies, as well as including some of the existing building’s structure to represent the references made to the building’s arch elements.

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ACRYLIC

UNIC / MAD

MATERIAL

TOOLS

ACRYLIC SHEET / PLASTIC SHEETS / SCRAP ACRYLIC

UTILITY BLADE / X-ACTO BLADE / SCISSORS

TECHNIQUE

PROPERTIES

Acrylic is one of the less common but more unique model-making materials, coming in a variety of colors, opacity, and thicknesses.

This material is often used in sheets to create transparent walls and facades to communicate glass or to expose the interior elements of the model to the viewer. Acrylic is a popular material used in laser-cutters to engrave 2-dimensional information onto a model to communicate some sort of diagram or detail. Acrylic’s variety of colors and types allows for much experimentation in architecture models, including the level of transparency of a facade or element, the choice of color to represent a diagrammatic element, or the choice to completely expose the interior elements of your model.

HARD / TRANSPARENT / VARIABLE / LESS ACCESSIBLE

VOCABULARY LASER-CUTTERS - machines using a high-power laser to engrave or cut materials into a variety of shapes drawn in digital programs

Cycling Center / We Are You + Erik Hallberg

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House of Writing / FRPO - Rodriguez and Oriol

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MA | UA / TRIAS

Acrylic is most often used to most accurately represent a transparent material. Here, a lasercutter machine was used on these pieces of acrylic in order to represent the details and texture of the building’s glass facade. There is also a clear choice made in this model to select a less transparent acrylic, creating a blurred effect when looking into the building.

This, along with the inclusion of the nearby landscapes (made specifically out of a constrasting material), effectively communicates a particular relationship between the public outdoor environment and the more private indoor space.

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5X5 Exhibition / Brillhart Architecture

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KaDeWe Department Store Renovation / OMA

In this renovation of the historical department store in Berlin, Germany by OMA, this model is created to emphasize the central cores of the design. The design breaks this existing mass down into four quadrants, each with their own central void that serves as vertical circulation throughout the department stores. This model is effective in communicating the existing facades, and also in emphasizing these voids as bright solids.

Representing voids as solids is a common practice in architecture design and model-making, and in this case, it helps the viewer understand the spaces and forms that are created within these empty cores.

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5 Studio Work / Yuanyang Teng and Nour Nouralla

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3D PRINTING

MATERIAL

TOOLS

ABS FILAMENT

3D PRINTER / 3D MODELING SOFTWARE

TECHNIQUE

PROPERTIES

In the new age of design, digital modeling has paved the way for bold, limitless, parametric designs, made possible through technological breakthroughs in engineering and design strategies. This model-making strategy is less accessible than most, because it requires access to a 3D printer, but is extremely valuable in its potential to create models that would be otherwise impossible to create by hand. The advantages to 3D printing are plentiful existing digital models can be used to cerate a physical model, smooth, angular, and particularly difficult forms can be created with ease, and the printer can do its job overnight, wasting as little time as possible on production. This strategy is a popular choice for creating light-weight, abstract models.

HARD / OPAQUE / VARIABLE / LESS ACCESSIBLE

VOCABULARY PARAMETRIC - expressed in terms of parameters; in digital modeling, to automatically generate a design based on algorithms and rules,

Clover House Kindergarten / MAD

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Rebuilding 2.0 / REX/Croxton Collaborative

While many use 3D printing as a means to create wildly bold forms in their design, 3D printing is also great for creating quick and simple contextual models. The simple color and texture of 3D prints serve to create a non-distracting base for the actual design to stand out. The ease of these prints also allows the user to create their more detailed model while the site model is being printed.

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A Monument of Void / Lilach Borenstein

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MOLEWA Competition: West Side Boulevard / TEAM730

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House of Water / Third Nature

Like many models that require 3D printing, this one is made up of extremely abstract and organic shapes. This form would simply be near impossible to create in any other modeling material, and still must have taken days to fully print and assemble. The one slight disadvantage of 3D printing is that it requires a relatively accurate digital model to be completed, and even after the digital model is completed, it can take many hours to finish printing. Though, this is still a common strategy used by many students, as the advantages are still plentiful. If a university provides 3D printers, these projects can often be left to print overnight, and require little to no physical laboring over perfect assembly.

Digital modeling and 3D printing is where physical model-making and digital design crossover; finding a balance between these two mediums can be extremely effective for students who find traditional model-making tedious or stressful.

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Elderly Residence / Junya Ishigami