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Homo Faber: Modelling Architecture exhibition will be held at the Melbourne Museum opening May 31st and running till mid July 2006. The attached symposium will be held on June 1st at the Capital Theater Swanston St Melbourne. For more information or to join the mailing list please email Alison Fairley

SIAL has been awarded a large ARC Discovery grant: Spatial Knowledge and the Built Environment: The Design Implications of Making, Processing and Digitally Prototyping Architectural Models

This research project is for a three year period commencing 1 March 2005.

Chief Investigators:
Prof. Mark Burry,
Prof. Michael Ostwald, (University of Newcastle)
A/Prof. Peter Downton
A/Prof. Andrea Mina

Background

Four senior academics in the fields of Architecture and Interior Design, representing RMIT and the University of Newcastle, have been awarded a prestigious multi-year ARC Discovery Grant to research the role of models in the Architectural design process. This ARC project undertakes the first detailed investigation of the way in which architectural design is influenced by new, technologically mediated model-making techniques. The team of academics are combining their resources to reconcile seemingly opposite approaches: slow, deliberate, handcrafted model-making with digitally controlled rapid prototyping. The relatively slow process of handcrafting a model allows the designer to reflect as they are making their model. In contrast, rapid prototyping – a potentially highly iterative procedure – accelerates the process of putting ideas into action possibly at the expense of critical reflection. This is not to say that the new affordable digitally-based tools have completely supplanted traditional model shops and methods. This project is significant because we are at a time when the relationship between craft traditions and digitally based tools needs to be explored further. Without sufficient scientific and artistic scrutiny handcrafted modelling might be presumed to be inefficient, and dropped in the same way that hand drafting has almost disappeared from architecture studios. The argument that hand drawing could not compete with computer aided drafting (CAD) is not applicable to the relationship between hand and digital modelling though. Careful reflection is necessary because there seems to be as much potential for loss as there is for gain as a result of this change.

The critical research question is;
How do we know which approach to modelling, if any, is more effective in a design sense, regardless of efficiency?

Outcomes

The outcome of this research will be presented through two methods. Firstly, there will be a series of three exhibitions entitled Homo Faber, to be held each May at the Melbourne Museum. These exhibitions will showcase the models produced by the four chief investigators during their research. Complementing this work will be submissions from approximately thirty architects located around Australia detailing the role of model making in their designs. More specifically, they will detail an identifiable moment within the modelling process at which an architectural construct appeared that changed the course of the project and/or the architect’s career. The first of these exhibitions, Homo Faber: Modelling Architecture, will be held in the Melbourne Museum in 2006.

Additionally, a symposium run in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition will provide an opportunity for peer review and feedback. This symposium will allow the primary model makers, selected architects, and the invited keynote speaker to discuss the role of the design model in architecture today. It is anticipated that the symposium will be a very popular and well-subscribed event in the Australian architectural calendar. The outcomes will form the basis for the next year's exhibition and will become an integral part of the research. The knowledge produced by this research will establish paths for future design practice with concomitant changes to design education.

Dates for Homo Faber: Modeling Architecture2006

The exhibition opening will be held in the Discovery Center Foyer of the Melbourne Museum on the 31st May 2006. The Symposium will be held on the 1st June 2006 at the Capital Theater Swanston St Melbourne.

Contacts

Please contact Research Assistant Alison Fairley regarding further information about this project.

Phone: 03 9925 3520
alison.fairley@rmit.edu.au

Further Links

For further information please refer to the Homo Faber website
www.homo-faber.net

Streaming Video (Shown on the opening night)

TEMPLE SAGRADA FAMÍLIA - BARCELONA
Antoni Gaudi's approach to thinking, modelling and making
Visit Project page: Thinking Modelling Making