About

What this archive is for

This is a reference archive of physical architectural models built by students in the Model & Design elective at ETH Zürich. The models themselves rarely stay around, so the archive keeps them as a working reference — a place to see how a building can be studied at a particular scale, in a particular material, with a particular technique. Use the filters to ask practical questions (what materials suit a 1:20 model? what scales is plaster good for?) and browse the results for inspiration before building your own.

The course

052-0535-00L Model & Design (HS) / 052-0536-00L Model & Design (FS) · 3 ECTS · Thursdays 16:00–19:00 · HIL B 61

Model & Design is an elective about learning architecture through model-making. Rather than treating a model as a final presentation object, the course uses model-building as a way to investigate an existing building — testing materials, techniques, and construction principles by hand, and reflecting critically on what each model reveals.

What you'll learn

• Use models as tools to understand a complex question about an existing building.
• Test materials, techniques, and construction principles through hands-on work.
• Question model-building conventions by building your own examples.
• Document your process with annotated images and short written reflections.

How the course works

Models are answers to a question. At the start of the semester you choose a built project and frame a question to investigate through it. Over the weeks you build tests, material samples, and fabrication trials, and let what you learn guide your decisions: the model's type, scale, material, and level of detail follow from the question rather than being fixed in advance. The finished model, with its tests and documentation, becomes your answer — and a way to check whether your initial assumptions held up.

What you'll need

You should be comfortable building 3D models, drawing plans, and working with basic model-making materials. The course supports Rhino 3D and Fusion 360, but you're welcome to use tools you already know. Plan for the weekly 3-hour session in person, plus roughly 3–4 hours of independent work each week.

Reading the models: the taxonomy

Every model in the archive is described along five dimensions. Together they let you compare models and find references that match what you want to make.

• Scale — the ratio between model and building. At 1:1000, one metre becomes one millimetre; at 1:100, the same metre becomes ten. Changing scale changes what you can see and which relationships between parts become legible. Typical architectural scales run from 1:1000 down to 1:2, and some models have no fixed scale.
• Material — what the model is made of: plaster, cardboard, acrylic, wood, and so on. Each material has its own qualities — workability, colour, weight, how finely it takes detail — and a model can be one material or a deliberate mix. There's rarely a single right choice; it depends on the question.
• Technique — how the material is worked: laser cutting, 3D printing, cutting plotter, and the like. Each technique links to the RAPLAB workshop or tutorial where you can learn it, so a model also points to how it was made.
• Type — what kind of model it is: structural, landscape, prototype, sketch, form-finding, and more. The list grows as new kinds of model enter the archive.
• Detail — how resolved the model is, from 1 (abstract) to 7 (highly detailed). How much detail a model needs is partly set by its scale and material, and partly by the question it answers: it should carry everything the question needs, and no more.

Each project also carries a short description of its situated context — what the model includes and leaves out, and why — which is part of how the student framed their inquiry.