Tag Archives: modelmaking in practice

AiM Biennale Sessions Event: You Ask, They Answer! – June 28th

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We’re pleased to announce this upcoming panel event in association with the AiM launch exhibition at this years Venice Biennale. Panel members who have contributed to the AiM project will respond to your questions on the subject of physical modelmaking in architecture.

At a time when we’re bombarded with news of artificial intelligence as the future in all walks of life, what does the production of physical models have to offer students and architectural professionals?

To get insight into your thoughts on this and anything relating to modelmaking in practice we are putting your questions to our panel in a recorded event that will take place on Saturday June 25th at 15.00-17.00 at the Venice Biennale Arsenale.

The event is open to all so if you happen to be in Venice do drop by and get in touch for more information. If you can’t make it the event will be recorded and we’ll answer as many of the submitted questions as possible.

WE NEED YOUR QUESTIONS!

We’re inviting questions from anyone, students, academics, professionals or anyone else with an interest. Ask the panel their views and we’ll discuss your topics live whilst being recorded for release here on our blog at a later date. 

>>>>>>>>>Click here to submit your questions for the panel now!<<<<<<<<<<<

Meet the panel: 

Simina Ionescu, Architect at OMI Architects, Manchester

Simina Ionescu is a qualified architect with over 11 years’ experience in the industry. After graduating from Manchester School of Architecture, she worked at several award-winning practices across Manchester before joining OMI Architects. Her experience ranges from heritage and conservation projects to new-build developments across the community, residential and commercial sectors. She is a strong advocate for model making as part of the design process and has helped implement the introduction of in-house rapid prototyping at the past three practices she has worked at.

OMI is one of the leading design-led architecture practices in the Northwest of England. The team of architects are all based in a RIBA Award-winning conversion of a Victorian baths, where they have created a number of studios for the creative industries. They are a multi-award-winning RIBA Chartered Practice and a certified B Corp. The practice is known for a broad range of work across all sectors, many of which are within sensitive historic settings.

Outside of OMI, Simina is a guest lecturer on the MA Adaptive Reuse course at the Manchester School of Architecture and plays an active role in the architectural community as the Treasurer of the Manchester Society of Architects.

Joe Morris, Founding Director of Morris+Company, London & Copenhagen

Joe is the Founding Director of Morris+Company and spearheads the practice across its two studios in London (63 people) and Copenhagen (7 people). In a career spanning over 25 years of professional practice, which has achieved widespread international recognition, Joe has increasingly advocated a sense of urgency for fair and transparent practice, inclusivity and equality, through open dialogue and critical debate. He is increasingly vocal on environmental and social and governance issues and is the driving force behind MoCo’s ongoing journey to BCORP accreditation.

Models at MoCo are more than mere representations; they are an immersive, tactile medium for reflection, innovation, and abstraction. As Joe describes, they are simultaneously “reflection, experiment, innovation, representation, abstraction, communication, question, answer, success, and failure.” This multifaceted role imbues them with immense physical and conceptual value, a body of thought that embodies the cultural essence of MoCo’s practice.

Joe has rich experience of different types of clients, across both the public and private sectors and is accustomed to working at a range of scales. He has lectured on the work of the practice in many leading UK universities, as well as in Barcelona, Bilbao, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Liege and Romania.

 

Ecaterina Stefanescu, Other Peoples Dreams, Preston

Ecaterina Stefanescu is a Romanian artist, designer, researcher, and academic. She holds a Master’s in Architecture from TU Delft and is currently based in Preston, UK, where she teaches architecture at the Grenfell-Baines Institute of Architecture, University of Central Lancashire. Her artistic and research practice centres on modelmaking, live-build, and drawing as tools for exploration, investigation, and co-design.

Through what she calls ethnographic modelmaking, Ecaterina uses models to reveal what is often ‘unseen’ in the fields of design and architecture: everyday life as experienced by everyday people. Her approach is participatory, situated, and co-produced. Whether created with machines such as laser cutter or crafted by hand on site with participants from recycled materials, the model becomes a tool for representation, analysis, cultural expression, and community engagement. Ecaterina is also co-founder of Estudio ESSE, a design practice with work across Europe.

Other People’s Dreams is a live-action research studio based at the University of Lancashire. OPD utilises active participation and co-production with marginal communities in the north-west to conceive and create architectural and spatial interventions. These projects allow local people to test new possibilities, activities and infrastructures within the places that they live, work and play, leading to greater agency, autonomy and empowerment.

Peter Lee, Associate at HENN, Berlin

 Peter Lee is an associate in the design studio at HENN, where he has worked for the past eight years across the Berlin, Beijing, and Munich offices. Starting his career as a model-making intern, he now leads teams on early phase work such as competitions and feasibility studies, with a focus on science and research projects, as well as experience in commercial, educational and cultural work.

HENN is a third-generation architecture studio with over 70 years of experience, with offices in Berlin, Munich, Beijing and Shanghai. HENN has completed more than 150 projects and counts 400 team members from more than 40 nations. As a general planner, HENN works on projects involving architecture, urbanism and master planning across all project stages.

A passionate advocate for model making, Peter is especially interested in the role of the physical model as a design tool, and how it can complement digital or computational methods of practice. His expertise ranges from creating rough sketch models to high-quality presentation pieces for competition submissions, clients, and press events.

Alongside his work at HENN, Peter is an external lecturer at Berlin International University of Applied Sciences, where he runs design modules as part of the undergraduate architecture programme.

>>>>>>>>>Click here to submit your questions for the panel now!<<<<<<<<<<<

Modelmaking above Alexanderplatz – Peter Lee at HENN Architects, Berlin

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Earlier this summer I visited MSA Graduate Peter Lee at HENN Architects Berlin Office. Located overlooking Alexanderplatz, HENN is an international architecture office with additional offices in Munich and Beijing. They have a wide-ranging experience in work space, culture, health, education and research as well as production and master planning. It’s a great pleasure to see graduates take their modelmaking skills into practice. Where possible I always try to take the opportunities to learn just how these skills are used in their work and this has been one such occasion. Peter has been kind enough to discuss his experience over the last 3 years in practice since graduating from MSA.

After graduating from my masters in 2016 I wanted a bit of a change from Manchester so started applying for jobs in cities that I wanted to live in, mostly abroad, and HENN was the first place that got back to me. The job description was particularly interesting in that it was a mostly model making role within the design / competition team, which suited my skill set pretty well.

On a day to day basis I produce a lot of sketch models, mostly for internal use which really helps with making design decisions. Because of the fast pace of competitions (they generally last a month or two), people are often jumping between projects. Having a model in front of you is a much easier way of understanding site conditions, massings and contextual relationships than working purely with software because it has this tangible quality. 

The workshop has a laser cutter, spray booth, hot wire cutters, disc sander, sandblasting cabinet and Ultimaker S5 3D Printer. Mostly we work with foam, card and acrylic – occasionally we get things outsourced or made in the HENN Munich office, which has more machines available for woodwork.

In terms of setup it’s a lot more restricted than what the students have access to at B.15 which is mainly due to spatial constraints. The office is located in a 70s East Berlin tower and there isn’t enough space for more equipment -however, it’s more than sufficient for producing competition / presentation models. It also serves a different purpose as a workshop for a commercial practice – B.15 is more about giving students the opportunity to learn and therefore supports a wider variety of techniques and materials that aren’t necessarily appropriate or efficient for me to use.

Most of my time is spent on massing and context models but it really depends on what is important to the project – it could also be façade models, mock-ups of internal spaces, more conceptual pieces etc.

Around two years ago I produced a sketch model for an office tower competition in Hamburg which we went on to win. The massing was derived by cutting out foam slabs and arranging them to generate a stepping double height void moving up the lower part of the building. When placed in the context model and compared with other designs it was clear that it was the right way forward – while it was more conservative than some options it fulfilled all the masterplan requirements while retaining an interesting spatial logic.

The competition was also a different format from usual in that we had a lot of contact with the client / developer during the design process. People always love it when you turn up with a model, especially if it’s not required – in this case we brought a lot of sketch models which gave an insight into the design process that the client wouldn’t normally see. It’s also more interesting to have something more tactile in front of you instead of being sat in front of slides and slides of presentation, which definitely worked in our favour.

Leading practices at the moment like Morris and Co, Carmody Groarke are really pushing the use of models as an important design tool and it would be good to see that trickle down into the majority of practices. I have had two architectural jobs before this one – the only time models were around was for presentations and they were always built by a specialist model maker. Software is all well and good but I feel you can always make better design decisions if you have a physical representation in front of you.

If I could change anything about my work on a personal level it would be to be a bit more poetic with my model making through abstract / conceptual models and material explorations – most of what I do at the moment is pretty representational. Having said that, I really enjoy my job here. It can be long hours from time to time but it often feels like an extension of architecture school due to the quick nature of competitions and room to experiment. It’s also good to see models being used as a design tool and being able to use my skills to collaborate with other specialists, such as computational designers.

Thank you to HENN for allowing us to share this insight and to Peter for his thoughts, time and continued enthusiasm towards the work we do here in B.15.

– Scott

Peter at work in on his MArch final major project B.15 Workshop in May 2016