Design discussions: Making models

Last week, in our latest session of DIG-IT (that’s Design Interest Group – Integrated Thursdays), we had a grand time discussing and trying our hand at model making!

Today’s design professionals increasingly learn and work digitally. Computer modeling, rendering, and design are great for certain activities and generating data. But design isn’t always enhanced with a picture perfect image or animation or the exactness generated by computers.

Making a physical model, whether a quick sketch model to a finely crafted display model, has unique benefits. Modeling uses different parts of your brain than drawing or drafting. It’s an inherently tactile experience that puts you more in touch with the materials; it helps you know “what a material wants,” as Louis Kahn would say. Making it real also exposes conflicts, and challenges assumptions that could easily be cropped out of a rendering.

Participants had just 10 minutes to make a model expressing tension.

The originality on display was fantastic and everyone had fun engaging in design in this increasingly uncommon way. Below are the models on display at our Portland office. A big thank-you for everyone who participated – your creative energy and enthusiasm made my night!