How models make architects’ ideas real

When SHoP Architects was pitching design ideas to Uber for the ridesharing company’s Bay Area headquarters, which opened in 2021, the design team sought to convince the tech client to approve a facade with automated windows. Operated via environmental sensors, the window system would adjust shading and allow for cross-currents to create a superior interior climate for staff—a fitting metaphor for a company seeking to automate catching a ride.

Despite the green bona fides of automated climate controls, selling the idea wasn’t easy, especially due to the budget the advanced window system would require. But Charlie Wynter, who directs SHoP’s Fabrication Lab, explains that the firm built a scale replica of the building with the window system and showed Uber how it worked. The realistic model helped make the pitch successful.

In a digitally saturated world and industry, where artificial intelligence and design software make up ever larger portions of workflows and presentations, there’s an increasing longing for more analog ways of creating and presenting ideas. Like vinyl records, architectural model making remains a niche that symbolizes care and quality.

“There’s something about the physical model that is truly the real proof of concept,” said Ed Wood, cofounder at Radii, an 8,000-square-foot model shop in Hoboken, N.J. “There’s something that takes your breath away that just isn’t there with even the most sophisticated digital animations.”

SHoP founding principals Bill and Chris Sharples love models of both their buildings and planes, which grace the firm’s Manhattan headquarters. But models are not just a means of decorating an office or displaying history: Their use can set a firm apart.

“Everybody can produce a beautiful digital image,” said Carlos Castillo, director of Castillo Fab, a freelance model shop in New York City. “Models are becoming important again. People are realizing there’s renewed value. You can’t turn off a model.”

Refining ideas, then showing them showing off

While a bulk of architectural models are used for high-end residential or condo sales, they still play an important role in other types of commissions, especially skyscrapers. Despite the relatively small scale, models can still be massive, million-dollar replicas that hover near an office’s ceiling. And some architects have flown to client meetings with big models, giving them a seat on the plane.

Even smaller firms without the budget for show-stopping display pieces may use the model process to refine their ideas. Showcasing material experiments can even convince suppliers to push themselves to try something different or get a client to agree to use mass timber. Many architects working in model shops have found that models help refine concepts and visualize ideas while providing hands-on experimentation with materials that can inform the final product.

“When the audience gathers around the model, then it becomes a roundtable discussion,” said Jeff Tao, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)’s New York City model shop manager.

Presenting models to communicate with clients and pitch ideas can give concepts more gravitas and make a significant–and even financial–difference for firms seeking to stand out. These final displays can include cutaways showcasing the interior or models of surrounding blocks, highlighting a key location.

BIG once made a gigantic 12-foot-long model of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, a notorious elevated section of roadway near the borough riverfront, for a presentation for the New York City Department of Transportation. The model included working parts of the nearby waterfront.

Model making as a profession

Model makers have different backgrounds: While many went to architecture school, others came from set design or even trades like woodworking. But there’s a shared sense of using the physical form and capturing the smallest detail, down to plants and door handles, for a narrative.

Wood described part of the job as understanding design and marketing, plus utilizing creative problem-solving that captures the spirit of the project while staying true to reality. Sometimes the pitch can be quite direct. For one project, Radii placed a model of the potential building owner’s yellow Porsche 911 pulling into the parking garage.

Helpfully, model making has kept pace with current technology. Amid the care and craftsmanship that come with assembling large replicas of building proposals—scaling down wood, bending clear acrylic for curved windows, or replicating the natural glow of lighting—tech like computer-aided design, 3-D printing, and resin printing often plays a part in making these replicas. Many SHoP models have a QR code at the base of the display that pulls up additional information. Wood said that just as advanced digital software enables architects to bend forms and create a new visual vocabulary, model makers feel a push to adopt techniques like vacuum forming to replicate new shapes.

There are similar dynamics at play with sketching, where digital ways of drawing and sketching can refine and showcase ideas. They can also be animated and brought to life via artificial intelligence. Hamza Shaikh, design technology co-CEO at Gensler, says the global firm has been utilizing sketching and high-end digital tools to take ideas first placed on pen and paper, or perhaps stylus and screen, and transform them into animations.

The turn toward digital design has pushed people to value more artistic representation and human sketches, according to Shaikh. The finger and the pen form the quickest connection to the brain, he said; sketching is a provocation, so it makes sense to use a hybrid approach that focuses on human input.

“We want to be able to use the best of generative AI’s capabilities,” said Shaikh. “But how do we keep our human agency and have an analog workflow at the center?”

The economics of modeling

As a business, modeling has faced more challenges in recent years. Castillo said that while his business isn’t expanding, he’s maintaining consistent business year-over-year despite declining architectural billings. There’s still an appetite for his work, which focuses on using natural materials. At Radii, the cycles of business have become noticeable. Occasionally, there’s a building frenzy. Other times, during slow periods, there’s more work on competitions and in-house models for comparing ideas.

BIG’s Tao said models are becoming smaller and more portable due to increases in shipping costs. While skilled labor makes up about 90% of the cost of a model, materials have become more expensive, especially acrylic, which mostly originates from China. Tao’s materials used to cost a few hundred dollars for a building, but they now have hit $1,000 or even $2,000 per project. But he’s confident there will always be a place for models.

“Models will exist,” he said. “It's going to survive, despite how far the digital will go. This is still the only way to transfer the digital to the physical.”

Patrick Sisson is a freelance writer covering architecture and design. He lives in Los Angeles.