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Architectural Model Making

Architectural Model Making

True architectural model making is mainly confined to 3 areas. Planning models, test and development models, sales models and occasionally exhibition models.

 

 

1/ The first come in several forms, the initial model can be made in block forms with very little detail, these are usually constructed in either a foam tooling board or in card box forms, or styrene as a substitute for card.

 

2/ From these come the more detailed models in laser cut styrene or acrylic sheet, showing windows elevation details and sometime the interior spaces depending on the type and scale of development. The construction of these models can also show the landscape of the site the roads, any walls or general site details. The construction used can be of many materials, but tend in modern methods, to be a combination of wooden board, low density tooling board and a variety of textured materials, such as sand paper, flock sprayed paper, laser cut surface detail patterning and texture. These models can also be used in a slightly simplified form for wind tunnel testing. These models are modified to accept a series of sensors to allow the building to be tested to observe wind flow over them and the forces that will be exerted on the finished building.

 

3/ And lastly the fully finished model showing the colours, building details, landscaping, window finishes, parking spaces, underground car parks, street lights, and all the street furniture we come to expect in our busy environments. The main structure of these models is similar to No. 2 (above) with wooden bases, contoured with low density tooling boards and styrene buildings, but the detail is embellished with a variety of different materials.

Balconies are often etched out of thin brass as are some foliage effects, fences, bridge handrails, some complex window surrounds, benches and many other minor details.

Plants, trees, bushes and grass effects are created from many different materials depending on the scale and type of vegetation. Most items tent to be off the shelf, pre-made trees bushes and flowers. However with a keen eye many of the items can be made of scrap materials that would normally be binned. For example there are types of lichens that can be died different colours that from very effective bushes. Sand paper can be used as gravel, grass or tarmac depending on which colour finish is sprayed.

The detail can be as realistic as the client budget can extend to. Sadly most clients require compromises to fit with in a budget, to many model makers dismay.

 

1 and 2  models are normally used in the planning and development stages of the process.

The 3rd model while sometimes used in planning tends to be used ultimately in the sale side of development and from time to time as exhibition centre pieces.

 

There are many other forms of architectural models, they have diverse uses most of which fall in to the areas of hobby or gifts. Here follows a short list of some of them, with a description of the modelling materials and some of the techniques used in making them

A/ Collectors gifts (collectables) These tend to be small self contained little cameos, for example, dolls houses, which are stylised to a degree. The example shown, the master model was mainly made from a fairly hard grade of modelling wax, with insets of brass and plastic, which were either etched or machined to the correct form. Once the master was finished and approved, it would have been moulded in silicon rubber under vacuum. This would have given a perfect mould for replicas to be reproduced in either a polyurethane or polyester resin. Once cast they will be spray painted with base colours and then detail finished by hand painting.

B/ Toys – helping our children to understand the spaces and form that create our environment. The original concept of the toy would have been made in a very similar way to the architectural models were made. But this is only the start. From here drawings are made, and in most modern production processes tools are made using CAD and CNC milling machine or by a spark erosion system. This is a system where there is a positive made of the model and then it is eroded into a solid steel block to form the tool. From these moulds production samples are made decorated and approved. Then the production moulds are made and products are mass produced. This for of production is called injection moulding.

 

C/ Dioramas – often used to display the vehicle and solider models people collect. This category of models falls into 2 main areas. The first is the enthusiast that will make small terrains to display soldiers or vehicles and are scratch built using a variety of materials, often organic or scraps found round the house, example would be vac formed plastic packaging, cut into shape to form walls, twigs and earth to make trees and ground texture.

The other category is the commercially produced Diorama often sold with collector’s models to display vehicles on or figures. These are made in wax and other model making mediums, moulded and often cast in polyester resin. Alternatively if they are to be sold in volume, they can be made in steel moulds, injection moulding, and produced in plastic.

 

D/ Museum Display models – Used in an almost endless list of applications to demonstrate processes, environments, historical buildings that no longer survive.

Interiors showing living space, and the environment of our ancestors.

To describe how these models are made would be a lengthy article on it own are the are so many different solutions to the display of historical subjects, I could fill a book. In short all of the processes above could be applied to this area, and many more, including full size set production, as used in film and theatre. Specialist lighting and sound effects are also used, combined with multimedia systems bringing models to life.

 

E/ Exhibition models - Showing cut away models to sell new building materials. Or as a display of a new development of flats, to show what they look like before they are built.

The diversity of methods used in this category is similar to the Museum display models, both categories are trying to get messages across to the public.

 

F/ War games – Used to embellish the landscape that battles are fought on. These are scratch built and commercially produced. The detail levels can be from both extremes, a simple wooden block at one end and the most exquisite detailed model at the other end.

Techniques vary but all of the methods above could be and are used.

G/ Railway models. The models are made again in different materials, plastic, wood, resin, surface textures in organic scraps collected. They can be kits supplied but shops, often made in injection moulded plastic, or “Garage Kits” made from polyurethane resin.

Many scratch builders use plastic sheets to create models, embellishing them with stunning detail to add realism for their displays.

 

H/ Film and Theatre Models – A lot of these can be made full size to create an illusion of a place or building. These are built rather like our houses are made, carpenters, steel fabricators and animatronics specialists are employed to animate or add multimedia to complete the illusion. There are smaller scale models used, for instance to create building that is to be demolished in a film, or burned down, saving the expense of demolishing a full size building.

 

Hope this is useful as an introduction and as a comparison of the different methods used to make architectural models should you need more detail of specific areas please let me know and I will see if I have time to put something together.

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