handsome boy modelling school

last wednesday was a night full of arty type openings. i fully intended to pop into the RMIT architecture open studio, then head over to Pieces Of Eight in north fitzroy to check out the My Pet Rock show.
ambitious plan, to say the least. sorry to melanie and the gang for not making it - i'm sure it went off.

the open architecture studio, however, was amazing. blew my mind open, actually, because a whole bunch of stuff got me thinking. thinking about the hand/eye/brain aspect of model-making. thinking about design for the other 90%. thinking again about airports. thinking about what makes up a city. i have to post about all of them actually, but today maybe just a thing or two about modelling.

i always wanted to be a super model.

no, i jest, i'm talking about model making for design - architecture, interior design and landscape design. obviously it's about getting the form right. about transference from brain to hand to eye and back again. a pathway that only really works when you get out the balsa, or the veneer, or whatever you're using. and i think that pathway is matched only when one sketches. that physical manifestation of thinking. perhaps this is what they mean by craft.

there were so many amazing models in the place, it's kind of hard to know where to start, but one of the projects i was really interested in was one in which students made architectural designs using atypical modelling material: pencils, foil, plexiglass and ear buds [q-tips for you kids in NYC]. actually, the q-tip one got me thinking about the possibilities for taking architecture into areas/applications with no architectural design experience and being able pass on tools for 'shaping' easily (and with a little help from j&j).

they reminded me of the images of model-making with indigenous communities i saw at process a few months ago with martyn hook and peter.. peter, hmm, someone. anyway - they were using straws and blu-tak and cardboard to design appropriate housing for cape york and torres strait families.

anyway, it also reminded me that craft, model, make, design, develop, space and shape are all verbs, and that the process of making forms which reflect a space is equally as (if not more so, in some areas) important than the beautiful forms you see in other areas of the studio. don't get me wrong, some of the elaborate models were amazing, and i love a slick model, but this project in particular reiterated the joy and purpose, the process of creative discipline and spacial design.