Communicating with laypeople

The purpose of the architect's tools is, as generally stated, to help the architects themselves to develop and visualize their spatial ideas and intentions. But the tools can also be used to communicate with other groups of professionals and with laypeople. This paper deals with the question how the choice of tools can effect the communication between laypeople and architects. It also stresses the need of combining different media in order to create the best conditions for user's participation. If the users will be able to influence the planning of an environment they must understand the “languagei of the medium and have the ability to use it themselves. Models on diverse scales, and first of all the scale 1:1, fulfil these demands better than drawings. There are distinct limitations of the full-scale model, when it comes to give the users a comprehension of the entire mock-up, and thus models on smaller scales are required. Limitations of both full-scale and small scale models concerning visualizing the exterior and the building's interaction with the environment could possibly be worked out with the help of computer technique