The model as a Design tool

Abstract

Merging in a single subject the teaching of urban planning and projects (building design) was a foundational decision of the Architecture School of Reus. The strategy, based at first in methodological and tactical reasons, already announced the school’s intention to question and redefine the study of Architecture, constituting from the beginning a very unique part of their syllabus. Such merging has given way to projects where, with the program as guidance, the reading of the context and the proposal developed as a continuous and inseparable, almost cyclical, sequence. Based on this conviction, we also propose the use of the largescale model as a tool for analysis and urban contextualization of the project. Materiality, scale, and context, but specially the concept take on a special value with models. An important part of the success of the project will depend on its intent. This is the point we are trying to make: models in our classroomlaboratories, whether they are objects, furniture, buildings or city designs, are always models of proposal, conception, anticipation and project tool.