EXTRACT. REFLECT.
-Understanding the Architectural Model
This work investigates how the architectural model and the act of making the model can be used as tools for generating knowledge and, at the same time, communicate that knowledge. This thesis asks what properties more than to represent a building the architectural model has.
The architectural model is one of the fundamental instruments in a design process. Together with plans and drawings it forms the foundation of tools on which architects materialize and communicate their ideas and visions. Even though students in the architectural school are encouraged to build models, the full potential of what the architectural model can achieve is rarely discussed and even more rarely exhibited.
The architectural model is often exhibited as a part of a presentation, an end result. This thesis argues that the model can take on a different role in the process. In what other ways can the architectural model help us to understand and communicate what we are doing? The architectural model has got the ability to operate at a variety of levels. Not only as a representation of a future yet to come. But as embodiment of process, thoughts, knowledge, and ideas.
With an artistic approach, this work is positioned in a theoretical and practical discourse where the process of making the model and its performative aspects are seen as drivers for understanding and communication.
By conducting a process that is limited in the way that the same model is made over and over again, with a variety of techniques, approaches, scales, etcetera, studies and reflections upon the different properties of the model will be enabled. First by making several models, and then by studying how the different models inform each other, and how the different approaches and outcomes from each process generates knowledge. Together the different models will form a base for understanding and reflections of the properties of the architectural model. And by that, embody and present the state between an idea and a physical model.
