Columbia GSAPP”s 3D printed Saturated Models Seminar

Alistair Gill & Veronika Schmid presided over the Saturated Models Seminar at Columbia”s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. As part of this course 8 groups of students explored 3D printing. We were very happy to support this innovative project as i.materialise. In the words of the instructors:

 ‘Saturated Models’ interrogates the question of the ‘model’ in architecture. This is not simply an exposition of the ‘model’ in the history of architecture. It starts rather from an understanding and unpacking of a seeming obviousness of the ‘model’ in architecture, as if it comes naturally with the territory. The fine balance between a preciousness attached to a need to create objects, and a simple dismissal of such desires, was the terrain where the experimentation took place. A certain idea of ‘saturation’ enables this questioning of the multitude of uses of ‘model’ in architecture, whether that be as Idea, the sensory, idealizations, the basis of simulations or understandings, prototyping, miniaturizations, etc. All of these are interrogated in terms of how an unpacking of the model’s obviousness opens onto a space to think the ”model” otherwise, along with how to think and what to do with the stockpile of both new and existing models in architecture. The ”models” produced were: Postcard (by Sarah Carpenter and Dalia Hamati) Corset (by Eleftheria Xanthouli, Loukia Tsafoulia, Eva Poulopoulou Liquid Joint (by Molly Calvani, Michi Ushio) Watercolor (by Kurt Rodrigo, Kasey Josephs) Gyroscope (by Vince Miller, Juliana Kei) Soft Surface (by Jung Woo Yeo, Wonshok Lee) Handrail (by Brian Buckner, Damon Lau, Carolina Glas) Velcro (by Julie Jira, John Hooper).

Today we have the first 4 photographs of these inovative studies for you. We”ll have the second set next week as well and then we will take a deeper look at these projects.

Awesome photographs are by Julie Jira.