workshop1 model making week4 poster

workshop1 model making

Before you start building a model, you need to select the right material. The most suitable material can make your model making process much easier. On week 1, when I was doing my in class work, I did not have the right glue, I could not glue each pieces together. It is a lesson, tell me that it is very important to select the right material.

Details

Another hard part that I have found during the 4-weeks-model making experience is that how to build the detail of the building, such as the window frames. Also the details give model life, make them no longer just a massive block. For my week 1 take-home task, the Barcelona pavilion, I was trying to build a model that looks as similar as possible to the real building. I printed out pictures of marbles for different sides of walls, and stick onto the basswood. But it turned out that is not the appropriate way to do.

I also found difficulties when I making the frames of the glass walls, I delivered the glue directly from the container onto the basswood, which was wrong. The appropriate way to do it is deposit a small amount of glue on a palette and applies it to model parts using a brush. To create a clean model, we should always have a tool between our hands and the model parts.

There are some useful tips for building the detail parts of a model: (Model Making, Megan Werner2011, Princeton Architectural Press, New York)

n         Dilute white glue by 50 percent to create a thinner surface film when dry

n         Tape joints on the outside to hold them in place during gluing.

n         Always use the least amount of glue possible to reduce drying time and to keep the surfaces of models clean.

Site Model

I selected basswood sheets as my material to build the site model for my week 2 take home task, Louis Kahn’s fisher house. At first I modified the topographic drawing, and printed it out, traced the original lines and cut them off, then stacked the layers. If we want to emphasize the quality of the earth, we can choose some materials such as cork or flocked surface.

When I building the site plane, I built the house and the river in the same material, the pasteboards, which cause bit confusion, make the audience feel that they are a whole part. It also proved that the choice of material is very important.

I cut the basswood into pieces and glue them together to build the trees, but there are some better methods to represent the trees, such as twist the copper wires to create tree trunks.

There are some useful tips for building a site model:

n         When setting boundaries on a site model, consider the location of three-dimensional objects and their predominant colors. They must be visually balanced to provide a composed frame of view

n         Represent trees conceptually using bare rods. This method gives a sense of wooded space without interfering with visibility. You can also create trees by stacking layers of cut paper onto thin rods.

workshop1: model it

week 1
barcelona pavilion

week1 in class models 

week 2

site model

fisher house by louis kahn

week2 in class model

week3

fisher house by louis kahn

week3 in class model: