modelmaking and presentation workshop

on 9 april we had a workshop on modelmaking and presentation skills for 101. apparently our senior chris have invited the all-star students from 201 and 301 to share their knowledge. the coming photos I focused mostly on modelmaking; but I guess I’ll summarize the presentation part in the end of this article.

this is elvin tan’s model, 202 work (2008) on langkawi fishing museum. well, his modelmaking skills is among the best in his batch. I wish I could describe the ideas behind it; but unfortunately I can’t.

farhan’s work, which is the same project (fishing museum). notice the green roof and skylights; theyre really delicate. and again not much for the ideas.

tan kean seng’s group on architectural techniques. this is the model of frank gehry’s house, more popularly known as gehry residence. take a look at the windows and door frames; that’s just impossible to cut with bare hands!

my coursemate’s 102 (2008) work; ivan rennaldi on malacca client house. as his client was ironman, his ideas was about space transformation. yes, actual transformation. if that wasn’t enough; his models can be transformed or configured.

my 102 model of malacca scarpa canals wasn’t really shown in the workshop; but it was located in the permanent gallery instead. read more about my project here.

basically the essence of modelmaking is craftsmanship. well, for final models not experimental models that is. here are few guidelines in summary on architecture modelmaking;

1. invest on good equipments; especially cutting knife and glue container
2. try on all kinds of glue; PVA, cyanoacrylate and UHU
3. only certain materials work with certain glue; i.e perspex with chloroform
4. avoid glue stain at all costs
5. print out the plans to measure what you’re cutting
6. grasp the texture of the materials instead of plain surfaces
7. always attempt doing a sectional model
8. model should show the essence of idea rather than building a full model
9. brush up photography skills to document the model
10. a whole night to build a model is just impossible.

I took a lead in tutoring on architecture presentation board. here’s a brief view of how my 102 presentation board look like or check the full board here.

guidelines on composing an architecture presentation board;

1. do what you do best, there is simply not enough time to experiment new rendering methods
2. align all the text & images, it’ll look more professional
3. avoid fancy fonts,  keep font size/styles to a maximum 3 variations (title, subtitle, descriptions)
4. keep your descriptions in a small size; viewers only read if they are interested
5. look at design books for ways/diagrams to present your ideas
6. master the line thickness in drawings
7. show things that only reflect your ideas
8. avoid filling empty spaces with pointless images
9. keep the usage of colors to a minimum; colors usually spoil instead of enhance
10. have hierarchy in images (compelling image, descriptive images and thumbnails)

here’s how the workshop looks like.

chris in the spotlight.

farhan’s advicing.

behold, ivan the god of modelmaking.

mr faisal and chris.

and a student, vincent managed to summarize the workshop in his blog as well; you can check it here and here.

junior: how do you manage to get to sleep doing all these?
senior: well, we don’t.

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