Model It! | Week 4

Week 4 - Presentation of the Fisher House Site

View from the creek

Overview of the whole site model

With the whole house lifted up to see the basement sunk into the slope

Interior of the 2nd level of the left cube and 1st level of the right cube

with more prominent sunlight and shadow play cast into the interior

The Fisher House designed by architect Louis Kahn is situated in Pennsylvania. It shows a concept of two cube masses interlocking and cutting into each other, forming interesting interior spatial circulations and a beautiful facade sitting on the top of a sloping grass patch overlooking the creek.

Building models requires the understanding of detailing of the building in order to construct it as best I could to replicate the original. As I have never done site models before, this was a great experience such that I learnt I should plan way in advance how I was going to construct the way the building would cut into the ground, like how in the Fisher House project, it has a basement that opens out to a porch at the lower end of the slope. I was lucky that I built the site model in a way that I could easily cut off where the building would sink in place without destroying the completed sloping site.

Looking around at what other people had achieved was intriguing. I saw how other students had even constructed the furniture in the building down to the refrigerator in the kitchen and the bathroom urinals and basin taps. It was amazing how they could get down to such detail and upon questioning, I found out that they had used tweezers to help place the teeny tiny bits in place. I saw how some also patched up the little gaps of imperfection with wood fills and sanding the surface off to a smooth clean finish. It was great to look at what everyone had done and I learnt lots of nifty little tricks that one can use to make beautiful presentation models. It also made me wish I had more time to work with my model to perfection.

Model making is really really time consuming and requires lots of effort, patience, determination and passion to see your model come up from scraps of balsa to the final completed piece of artwork. Every bit of effort shows through the joints and cuts you made. It not only helps in conceptualization, but also helps you visualize how your designs could look in real life, and how it could be constructed. Though it took many sleepless nights to try to complete the model, honestly, I would do it again. It was just so satisfyingly worthwhile when you see your completed piece of work.

Model It! | Week 3

Week 3 Class Exercise - Interior Detailing of the Fisher House by Louis Kahn

Interior detailing is one of my favourites to work with. While studying the interior perspectives of the Fisher House, I saw the direction in which the floorboards were being laid and wished to emphasized that with this model exercise. I decided to cut lengths of balsa wood in 2 different widths and just randomly pieced together the flooring trying to resemble the one in the picture. While it was extremely time consuming (everyone in class basically nearly completed the whole model when class ended while I only had the floorboards done with one wall standing) the end results were rewarding. I thought this was an excellent exercise such that I kind of learnt how things had and could be constructed, whether or not a design concept is feasible when it is to be constructed in real life.

Model It! | Week 2

Church Of Light by Tadao Ando

This take home assignment was a great practice for my model making skills and getting to know the characteristics of balsa wood. I chose a rather thick balsa wood for the walls to represent its thickness on plan. But when joining the walls end to end, I realized the ugly joints it created as you could see the cut grains on the ends of the wood that couldn't be covered. A way to improve the exterior look of the model is to maybe use thinner pieces of balsa to go over the whole wall again to cover the corner joints. 

Also I realized the importance of understanding the spatial circulation of the building in order to make the model make sense. So here are some images of the Church of Light captured:

Trying to play with the light, shadow and shape of the cross hitting on the wall at different times of the day.

Week 2 Class Exercises

The task for studio this week was to create quick sketch models. We had to make quick draft models of different variations of a double slanted roof house. Draft models are great steps in helping to visualize your design. While they do not look fantastic in craftsmanship, the idea is to help you understand the massing of your designs three dimensionally. 

Model It! | Week 1

Week 1 Class Exercise

The task was to construct 2 models of the same house using materials of our choice. At first I didn't know we had to construct the 2nd model. So I picked balsa wood for the 1st one. The house wasn't supposed to stand this way but because of the boxboard used in the 2nd model, the weight of the balsa wood in the first model couldn't support the weight of the 2nd one intersecting it. But well now i know what not to do.

Intersecting models creates new concepts that would be hard to picture in your head. This was a great exercise that would benefit the other design studio class I'm undertaking this semester as well.