Items where Subject is "Modelmaking"

Architectural models are an important part of architectural practice and culture, recording and communicating design process. Evidence of historic architectural models such as that held by the Thorp Modelmaking Archive and the internal archives of architectural practices such as Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), Foster + Partners, Make, and others provide valuable insights into the practices and processes that enable the development and communication of design concepts1. These models provide a tangible record of the social, political and technological concepts that have shaped the built environment, and the craftsmanship and creativity of the architectural modelmakers who make them2.
With the adoption of digital technology from the 1990s onwards, the tools and processes involved in creating architectural models rapidly developed3, with models made during the design process today heavily using 3D printing (3DP)4. As architectural models are increasingly archived these soon-to-be historic 3DP artefacts create new challenges for conservators.
This paper investigates the growing challenge of caring for culturally significant 3DP architectural models made by Zaha Hadid Architects, now in the collection of the Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF).

This article examines the preservation challenges posed by 3D printed architectural models as emerging heritage artefacts. Focusing on models from the Zaha Hadid Foundation collection, it compares the condition of earlier traditionally made architectural models with later 3D printed examples. The study used a site visit and sample condition survey, combining field notes, photographs, and non-invasive visual inspection of six models to assess materials, condition, and signs of deterioration. Findings indicate that traditionally made models from the 1980s and 1990s remain relatively stable, while more recent 3D printed nylon models show greater discolouration, fragility, and breakage. The article concludes that 3D printed architectural models present distinct conservation risks, particularly due to the limited understanding of the long-term behaviour of early 3D printing materials, and argues for improved analytical methods, storage strategies, and monitoring to support their preservation as part of architectural heritage.

Through a case study of the professionally made architectural model in Britain between the late 1960s and the early1990s, this article draws from archaeologist Ian Hodder’s concept of entanglement and argues that the relationship between the architect, the architectural model, and the modelmaker exists as an entangled web of shifting distributions of power governed by asymmetric tensions and mutual dependencies. In tracing the changing relationship dynamics that led to a dramatic broadening of the model’s visual styles to incorporate both realism and creative abstraction during this period, this article describes the professionally made architectural model as the locus of an intricate web of interconnected dependencies in which the model, the modelmaker, and the architect reap both the positive and negative consequences of their increasingly fraught entrapment. Demonstrating how a study of their entanglement reveals the complexities that exist within the human-object interactions that surround them, this article highlights the mutual dependencies that bind the model, the maker, and the architect together.

Architectural modelmakers have long carried out their work hidden behind the scenes of architectural design, and in presenting a history of architectural modelmaking in Britain for the first time, this book casts a new light on their remarkable skills and achievements.

By telling the story of the modelmakers who make architectural models rather than architects who commission and use them, this book seeks to celebrate their often-overlooked contribution to the success and endurance of the architectural model in Britain over the past one hundred and forty years. Drawing from extensive archival research and interviews with practicing and retired modelmakers, this book traces the complete history of architectural modelmaking in Britain from its initial emergence as a specialist occupation at the end of the nineteenth century through to the present day. It reveals the legacy of John Thorp, the first professional architectural modelmaker in Britain, who opened his business in London in 1883, and charts the lives and careers of the innovative and creative modelmakers who followed him. It examines the continually evolving materials, tools, and processes of architectural modelmaking and outlines the profound ideological, economic, and technological influences that have shaped the profession’s development.

Illustrated with over one hundred photographs of architectural models from previously undocumented archives, this book will be of great interest to architectural modelmakers, academics, and historians, as well as anyone with an interest in architectural history and modelmaking.

This thesis presents an historical account of the development of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain that aims to understand how the model came to be as it is today. With existing studies of the architectural model having been predominantly focused on its use within the design process and its cultural meanings, this thesis, in examining the architectural model from within the field of modelmaking rather than architecture, highlights developments in the making of architectural models as opposed to the dominant ‘post-production’ perspective that overlooks the role of the modelmaker and the materials and processes employed.
Drawing from extensive interviews with practicing and retired architectural modelmakers alongside historic documents and photographs from previously undocumented private archives, this thesis responds to Anna Fariello’s call for a ‘front-end’ consideration of objects that considers their making through its conceptualisation of the model’s contemporary form as an assemblage that emerged from the complex interactions between the various people, processes, materials, and ideas that have contributed to its history.
What this thesis reveals is how the contemporary form of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain emerged as a result of developments that took place during four distinct periods in its history: the initial emergence of architectural modelmaking as a distinct profession during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; the adoption of plastics as the principal modelmaking materials during the post-war boom of the 1950s and early-1960s; the turbulent realignment of the model’s ‘stylistic palette’ during the 1970s and 1980s; and the introduction of advanced digital manufacturing technologies from the 1990s to the present day. This thesis further argues that the notion of adaptability – emerging from the combined agency of the modelmaker’s imaginative and ingenious intentions and the intrinsic adaptability of the materials, tools, and processes employed – has been the most significant influence that has shaped the overall development of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain.

This thesis presents an historical account of the development of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain that aims to understand how the model came to be as it is today. With existing studies of the architectural model having been predominantly focused on its use within the design process and its cultural meanings, this thesis, in examining the architectural model from within the field of modelmaking rather than architecture, highlights developments in the making of architectural models as opposed to the dominant ‘post-production’ perspective that overlooks the role of the modelmaker and the materials and processes employed.
Drawing from extensive interviews with practicing and retired architectural modelmakers alongside historic documents and photographs from previously undocumented private archives, this thesis responds to Anna Fariello’s call for a ‘front-end’ consideration of objects that considers their making through its conceptualisation of the model’s contemporary form as an assemblage that emerged from the complex interactions between the various people, processes, materials, and ideas that have contributed to its history.
What this thesis reveals is how the contemporary form of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain emerged as a result of developments that took place during four distinct periods in its history: the initial emergence of architectural modelmaking as a distinct profession during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries; the adoption of plastics as the principal modelmaking materials during the post-war boom of the 1950s and early-1960s; the turbulent realignment of the model’s ‘stylistic palette’ during the 1970s and 1980s; and the introduction of advanced digital manufacturing technologies from the 1990s to the present day. This thesis further argues that the notion of adaptability – emerging from the combined agency of the modelmaker’s imaginative and ingenious intentions and the intrinsic adaptability of the materials, tools, and processes employed – has been the most significant influence that has shaped the overall development of the professionally-made architectural model in Britain.

Throughout the twentieth century architectural models served as the miniature playgrounds in which the future of Britain’s built environment was imagined, and in drawing from the evidence provided by those models today, this book considers how architects, planners, and civil engineers thought about that future by presenting a history of yesterday’s dreams of tomorrow, told through architectural models.

Focused not on the making of architectural models but rather the optimistic and utopian visions they were made to communicate, this book examines the possible futures put forward by 120 models made by Thorp, the oldest and most prolific firm of architectural modelmakers in Britain, in order to reveal a century of evolving ideas about how we might live, work, relax, and move. From depictions of unbuilt city masterplans to those of seemingly ordinary shopping centres and motorways, the models featured trace a progression of the architectural, social, political, technological, and economic influences that shaped the design of Britain’s buildings, transport infrastructure, and its towns and cities during a century of relentless change.

Illustrated with over 130 photographs, this book will appeal to academics and historians, as well as anyone with an interest in architectural models and the history of Britain’s twentieth century built environment.