Modelmaking in architectural space production : studio interactions in the material and the digital realm

This paper will question and reposition what traditional model making practices in architectural education have enabled and how the transition to digital model making ultimately also means a paradigm shift in the ways we produce, manufacture, design, use and experience architecture. To do so, I will argue that the shift that has taken place in architectural production from physical model making to using digital means of fabrication has not only created a shift in the way architecture is produced but also a shift in the type of architecture produced. I begin by arguing that the change of medium from the physicality of a material to the terrain of a virtual environment, is at first glance a simple change of medium, a change in the tools and techniques used. But because it involves a different type of interaction, a different effect is produced. The paper investigates examples from student work and concludes that the physical handling of matter informs the development of ideas in architectural and design education in a different way than the engagement with a digital tool because of the different experience the software affords and because of the different embodied experience that an object’s materiality offers