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Short abstract:

In bringing together physical and digital architectural model-making techniques, architectural knowledge becomes a method concerned with the notion of scale built around an acknowledgement of a conscious continuity between digital and physical domains whilst rejecting modernist dualisms.

Long abstract:

The term physical model frames an artefact with a broad spectrum of different uses and interpretations throughout the history of architecture. In it, physical models have been, at first instance, an artefact for producing architectural knowledge, so central in architectural education and practice.

Nevertheless, a characteristic of the 21st century for architectural knowledge is the engagement with contemporary challenges, such as the production and availability of new technologies. Over time, for example, the use of computers in architecture has allowed architecture students and architects to develop scripts and generate spectacular geometries and forms to be 3D-printed. Architectural models, as a product of omnipotent computers and 3D-printing machines, have made specific aspects of architectural knowledge inaccessible, such as the notion of scale lost with the ‘zoom in and zoom out’ gesture.

Drawing on the idea of physical models as a possible harbinger of architectural knowledge, this paper empirically explores the notion of scale through the physical and digital architectural model-making of 12 students at the Bristol School of Architecture and Environment. In bringing together physical and digital architectural model-making techniques, architectural knowledge becomes a method concerned with the notion of scale built around an acknowledgement of a conscious continuity between digital and physical domains whilst rejecting modernist dualisms. Thus, the question of architectural education and practice is on the agenda again.