Models, Architecture, Making, Research:

Fabrication

The models are positioned in a fanciful intellectual construct which I acknowledge as a fabrication in that I have teased out themes and woven them into a whole. Having written this, I am almost equally persuaded by the notion that there is no such constructed whole, rather, there is a piquant concoction cobbled together from collected frayed and partial constructs. The models are fabricated in the same sense; in addition, they are fabricated from their constituent parts and materials.

The 1994 drawing described above, is the earliest example of the fabricating I might understand as being a precursor to the model series described and represented here. I claimed that the pavilions occupied the lands surrounding it, but this was post-rationalisation five years after completing the drawing. The fabrication issues in this case centre on the production process of the drawing: the cliff top was envisioned, guide roof lines were indicated, and several vertical guidelines were faintly established. Then I began from the left – construed as the West end. I concocted an image of an imaginary building as I progressed, working predominantly from left to right and using reference books to hand to support the next idea. Semi-accurate representations of elements of known buildings and designs, rather than wilful distortions, were produced melded with fanciful concoctions mashed together into a claimed plausible whole. A three-dimensional version of this process of fabricating both a fantasy and its representation was subsequently used in models.

In childhood I made models in a similar manner without the theorising – simply by assemblage guided by an intention which evolved as part of the process. My aunt’s 1954 photo of a seven-year-old me bemusing my ill grandfather with a spaceship fabricated from Meccano parts, bits of sheet metal, cardboard, string, unidentifiable objects, and a rock, illustrate the process. Why a spaceship was equipped with skinny ‘wings’ is lost in time, but everyone likes the sandals.

Emergence and Material Engagement

 
Outcomes emerge during making. Where from? The same has been held to be the case for designing and for any human activity claimed to be creative. Do things come into being, or are they brought into being at the hands of makers? This is a difference of agency and intent. Either way, there is a large role for mystery, and as a putative explanation is not notably satisfactory. The term ‘appear’ could be substituted for ‘emerge’, in the first sentence, but the concept of emerging conveys the processual nature I am seeking to describe whereby what ends up being the model evolves from some starting ideas, and from others that are added in through the unfurling of the process. Of course, the model has a life beyond its declared completion, and further evolves conceptually and physically through (hopefully) slow decay. This use of emergence is a common language one, but more than two thousand years of overlapping and informative uses in philosophy and in sciences since the 20^th century provide much to enrich thought in this area.

If we think of a line of dancers emerging from the fog, then this captures one sense of the idea of emergence, it lacks, however, the characteristic of a dance emerging from a square full of people where there was no dance before – simply people doing whatever it was they were doing in that square. This picture, although better, lacks the sense of emergence that philosophies and sciences quest for when what emerges does so with no agency or intention – where the new whole is not explained by the characteristics of the parts. In the case of making models, it seems that one place to look for emergence might possibly be in materials. Many people working with materials, for example sculptors or woodworkers, talk about the characteristics of their materials guiding the outcomes, but this seems to me to be more about limiting what is possible or facilitating opportunities for an intelligent agent guiding the material in a chosen, and evolving direction. I do not think that I can make the case for emergence in the whole of the models themselves. Any approximation of emergence here results from including the designer/maker embedded in an intellectual and social milieu. Yet there is a nagging sense that emergence is somehow implicated. I am prepared to entertain further investigation of this.

Hovering at the fringes of this realm of bringing (artefacts) into being is the compelling concept of Material Engagement Theory as espoused by Lambros Malafouris in How Things Shape the Mind where he argues that early hominids were not dependent on developing sufficient intelligence prior to being able to form stone artefacts, but that the doing and the cognitive growth were mutually formative and necessary. Introspectively, this equates with designing, making, and learning as a necessarily whole process.

Making Places

The heading conjures two concepts; both are intended. The first is the idea of the making of places, in this case at a small scale, and is something I have been doing both formally and in rather ad hoc ways across the journey of making these models. This draws on place and placemaking research I undertook in the 1970s and 1980s. The second meaning employed here concerns the places in which the models were made – some already existed and I utilised them – two were constructed, occupied, and evolved. The second of these, my shed, is still evolving. Inevitably, these places involve tools, their use in that place, and the housing of them; they provide places for the emerging models, for tools, and for me.

Initially, I began to make at my desk employing some modelling tools acquired over many decades of making as a teenager, an architecture student, occasionally as an architect or model maker for myself and others, and as an intermittent maker of car models. Hence, I could assemble some sharp cutting blades, scale rules, straight edges, fine files and sandpaper, a compass set, a set square, some tweezers and small pliers, fine draughting pencils, some paints, fine masking tape, and a small saw and mitre box. I also had some pin-vices and fine drills, analogue vernier calipers, a nibbler, (both from my father), engineers’ squares, some other drills, and very ordinary household tools. I have continued to add tools, particularly more specialised ones. Squares, saws, pliers, and cutters have expanded considerably. Starting with what I had – bought from model shops at various times – I inherited a collection of diverse pliers and cutters from my father which I have refurbished and added to. Looking for specialist pliers, I found excellent German-made ones in jewellery supply shops, then one expedition introduced me to the impeccably produced Tronex pliers and cutters from Silicon Valley. It seems they make a plier or cutter for every circumstance; when you arrive at such an occasion of need, if the right tool is at hand, you can perform the task. Tweezers in many conformations are fun too.

Well prior to becoming over-excited about pliers, I re-arranged my workspace inside my home, left my desk to my computer, peripherals, and paper, and built a divider around another table in the same room. This new place corralled much of the modelling-mess and gave me a means to locate storage trays and shelves for tools. I mounted a MDF sheet to the adjacent wall which served as a tool board.

In parallel to these two workplaces, I employed two outdoor tables for activities that were dusty and messy at an enhanced level. Ergonomically these were very poor. Sanding, drilling, and spray painting in a cardboard box placed on these were weather-dependent activities with this arrangement. The set up and clean up times entailed were usually as long as the work time enjoyed. Ongoing explorations were curtailed by being unable to pause messy work and return to it. Having given a talk on my models and my ways of making in these pre-shed days, an industrial designer in the audience subsequently said to me that: “You’re just a bloke messing about in a shed – except you don’t have a shed.” But now I do.

As the model making got more out of hand and encompassed more of my world, I had been flirting with the idea of building a shed in which to operate. Marion was very encouraging, but I regularly assured myself this was not a good use of money. Finally, in early 2011, a shed was built at the bottom of the garden with minimal, negotiated, displacement of the fairies. To operate within both local council and site constraints, this is 3.8m by 2.25m internally with a door in one short end and windows above the bench along one long side facing South. The other two sides abut fences. The roof and the ceiling have a low pitch to a central ridge member which I painted red in contrast to the bare plywood ceiling, walls, and floor.

Model 14 ‘The Machine for Making Zephyrs’ was completed in the shed and ‘The Machine for Making Insight’, model 15, was the first to be commenced there.

The tool board is fixed to the East wall opposite the entry door, and it has grown and morphed over thirteen years at the time of writing. There are three benches under the windows. Initially they were each 700mm high. After three years of inhabitation, I constructed a box with two pull out drawers for tools atop the middle bench, thereby raising its work surface. The front edge frame for the box is jeweller’s bench (mid-chest) height with mounts for interchangeable jeweller’s pegs, a small vice, and a ring vice using the GRS ‘Benchmate’ system. The Eastern bench to the left of the ‘jeweller’s bench’ is where most fiddling about and final assembling is done. It is surrounded by small tools such as files, drills, squares, tweezers, rules, tapes, clamps, and the pliers and cutters collection. The Western bench adjacent to the door accommodates rougher making such as chiselling, larger sawing and activities employing powered tools. Most mess entailing serious dust is made there or on the Western end of the middle bench where there is a flexible drive hanging from above which can be used for grinding, sanding, and shaping. An under-bench shop vac is charged with keeping dust mildly in order. Above the windows on the South side, there is a storage shelf and a similar one to the East. Ideally, in a more expansive shed, the Western bench would be equipped with a vice for holding workpieces to be cut – maybe a reasonable sized woodworker’s vice and something more sophisticated. My bench is not substantial enough and the space in front of it is narrow. Currently, I use large clamps to fix things to the bench, a bench hook, or an external sawhorse. There are some power tools under the bench.

The North side of the shed is mostly devoted to shelves and cupboards for storing materials, possibly useful objects, paints, and some more tools. There is also a spray booth disguised as a cardboard box and a small, rarely-used lathe which formerly belonged to my father.

In all, I regard this shed as undersized. Some more space would be appreciated, but I have delighted in using it and am privileged to have it. (Having described it to a Singaporean at a conference he said: “Luxury! That is the size of an apartment in Singapore – for a family of four!”) My common complaint is about the narrowness of the aisle between the benches and the cupboards which frequently impedes turning in my chair and opening a cupboard door.

I have labelled it ‘shed’, but it is usually described as a studio or workshop by others, and it is each of these things. Sheds, particularly, conjure the idea of someone tinkering in such places but studios and workshops likewise have substantial degrees of exploration and decision making in conjunction with production. There are days when I feel it is connected to other making spaces; the Internet reveals a large collection of woodworker’s spaces – showing people with vast benches and maybe forty hand planes hanging on the wall, and it also shows crowded jeweller’s benches with every tool to hand. There are many specialist makers’spaces to be found on the internet – sculptors, luthiers, and makers of stuff. There is another tradition of ‘huts’ rather than sheds to which people retreated to think, write, or compose (philosophers Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and composers Gustav Mahler and Edvard Grieg all had celebrated huts), and I would like my shed to be a footnote to these traditions of thinking and making spaces while at the same time realising that my thinking is conducted in many places beyond the shed. Whatever its best label, the account above tells little of what I experience as a modeller spending time in this place.

It is most delightful on a calm afternoon with a gentle breeze. The door can be open along with one or more windows. A large tree shelters me from the sun as it lowers in the west or, if it is winter, the leafless branches filter the weaker sunlight. On a cold day I will keep the glazed door shut and don a red beanie until the heater warms me. Rain on the metal roof is a joy; when it falls from the gutterless roof edges its erratic sounds amplify my pleasure. In summer it can be too hot to occupy thoughtfully and pleasantly, and a fan would blow small parts and dust. In any season bird calls during the day can be frequent and fascinating or relentlessly repetitive. The aural signature of the neighbourhood has evolved over my era of shed occupation. It was quieter. Construction noise, I hope, reached a peak for two years on the adjacent block with a substantial development, while other nearby noisy renovations have not been long-lived; the number of cars using the lane beside me has increased, wheeled bins seem more frequent along this cobbled lane, and the rumbling motorbike is deployed with much less enthusiasm now. Children and parents still chatter past, and the occasional dog has something to say. Sometimes, I think I should install a tiny window onto the lane.

The activities of making inevitably create a sound picture. If listened to in isolation, there are near-to-random scrabblings, clinks, rasping, sawing, and sanding sounds of differing qualities as the materials I work on change. Larger hand tools and powered tools increase the volume of sound. Typically, they make more dust faster, and it may be plastic, metal, or wood dust which needs to be noisily vacuumed away. Working on any material, its sound and feel is a significant guide to how it is behaving. These are learned understandings. The activities of making produce accompanying smells. There is an intrinsic aroma of stored timbers which burgeons through cutting or sanding. Some shed smells are satisfying; some are not. Adhesives and paints are overwhelming and, while I wear various filtering masks, the odours fade slowly. I usually arrange any spray painting to be my last activity prior to leaving the shed, conduct it with the door open, shut the spray both, and leave.

The shed has its own musical play list reproduced on an increasingly sulky and infrequently used apparatus. A substantial sampling of the classical and romantic piano repertoire is featured interspersed with works from the last two centuries and a little jazz. I sometimes rigorously play nothing but Chopin or perhaps Brahms or Scriabin for days and then suddenly jump to John Adams or Mahler. I could consume this music via earbuds, but I judge them to impede the understanding of materials, whereas the sound from two speakers does not seem to.

The characteristics of the shed, its look, its smells, its sounds, its placeness, in some way contribute to the making. I am happy there, even if an aspect of my modelling is defying me; it can be satisfying to ruminate, to do nothing more than tidy the work surfaces, re-arrange things, or return objects to storage. Marion Pitt is a frequent visitor, often accompanied by a canine member of our household, and infrequently other humans come to examine me in-situ.

Making Materials

 
Descriptions in galleries and catalogues sometimes deploy the term ‘found objects’ when indicating the indeterminate bits and pieces included in a work. As a maker with an almost life-long habit of utilising assorted stuff in what I make, I think this term conveys an incorrect idea of blundering across things, and glosses over several interesting distinctions. I suspect other makers have similar processes: objects and materials may be found, but when they are, they are filtered; sometimes they are kept, or some selected sample of them is, but mostly the filtering means they are discarded, not even taken to the place of making for evaluation prior to rejection. Even when something is found, chance plays only a small part, as a maker is alert to possible opportunities and active seeking is undertaken.

The objects and materials I use can be categorised as sought, gifted, or inherited. Inevitably there is a selection process operating in each of these categories.

Objects and materials have, for me, been sought and discovered in the street, both on the ground and in skips at building sites, and sometimes during a hard waste collection. Once, outside a renovation of an old house where the interior was being stripped out and wasted, there was good quality furniture timber. However, sought objects and materials are not fortuitously found in my daily world with any frequency. I buy them. I have gone to timber shows and bought interesting woods as well as tools; I have asked to look in the off-cuts bin of a timber yard and found many of the bases which were sold to me as ‘Swietinia Mahogany’ (probably, I think, plantation Swietenia Macrophylla from somewhere in Asia); I have bought from jewellery shops and woodworking, and other tool shops; in electronics shops I have purchased what are, to me, mystical objects which appear to have potential. My aim in this last case is repurposing a chosen delight for a particular model, although I have typically bought things that have been used later or still reside in a cupboard – often because a model has evolved in unexpected ways. Modeller’s shops have provided materials such as fine sand, photo-etched stainless-steel elements for train, military, or automotive models, plastic parts, lacquers, paints, and all sorts of things that were intended for purposes other than mine. I have also imported such parts. Another source has been things found around the house: the end of a pen, cotton, bottle lids, tube tops, printer cartridges, paper, card, wire. Using such things echoes my childhood and teenage years.

These objects and materials were all sought; in each instance I had an intention to find them. Probably, the street finds were the most opportunistic but there are instances where I went to a shop and, by being alert to the possibilities of a chance discovery, riffled in unlikely sections. This is still actively seeking, not simply a chance finding.

Gifts that have been utilised in models have come from the following people: My father, Denys Downton, gave me some materials but mostly I inherited them from him. Alex Selenitsch, maker of art, poetry, buildings and ideas, arranged for me to select some Cedar pieces and some odd (unused to date) objects discarded during the renovation of the Melbourne Town Hall organ (bases for models 7, 8, 9, 10). My son, Cameron Pitt-Downton, gave me a substantial collection of interior parts from computer discs and these have been used in models 11, 12, 13, 14, and 34. Care-maker Tania Splawa-Neyman brought me a shell (model 21) and then a collection of fine metal tubes from a trip to Asia (model 24). Wood worker, the late Geoff Birtles gave me pieces of interesting timber (mostly used in models 28 to 36, and the side project of making a brooch) – an off cut for him provided an ongoing supply for me. He also provided a sparling review of one of my accounts of a model: “That’s just architect’s bullshit.” Model maker and collaborator, Andrea Mina in a way gave me a gift of numerous parts by suggesting I disassemble an old printer/copier and use the parts I found (models 18, 39). Most of these gifts have either led to a specific model or given shape to one that was brewing. One gift came by chance: walking down the lane behind our house to the park with my then young son an unknown ‘man in the lane’ stopped us and gave my son a small box containing a partially-made plastic model of a military tank. I have no idea why he was carrying it, who he was, or why he decided to give it. It was never built, and I subsequently annexed it. Parts of it appear obviously in model 15 and as slight elements in other models.

Inheritance has produced materials and many containers of parts. Except for the stone in model 23 from Nancy Downton, my mother, all the inherited items came from my father, Denys. There are not many models without a part, or a material inherited from him – sometimes something minor, possibly a hidden structural screw, may have originated from his workshop. These inherited objects have not been subjected to a rigorous evaluation strategy. They reside peacefully in drawers and boxes until I rummage through them seeking just the right thing. They have a potential use beyond the models, as sometimes a small metal or plastic bit is precisely what is needed to fix something around the house. If they were kept only for possible use in models many things would have been filtered out and discarded by now because they are a little large or insufficiently refined for the models, yet they keep producing items of use to me.

Quality, skill, and patience

 
At the outset of this project, despite having made numerous models over fifty years, I was a reasonably adept modelmaker, but not expert. I have acquired more knowing and skill and can achieve at least the same standard with less work. I only vaguely aspire to having exemplary skills; more accurately, I want my modelmaking to be good enough to carry the ideas I set out to explore, and which emerge as models are made. I have spent time with outstanding makers of furniture, models, and jewellery. This can be inspiring, educational, and depressing. Initially, I aspired to make ‘good’ models realising my means and methods were limited. When I became clearer about why I was making, I resisted the injunctions of other makers to get parts printed, laser cut, or machined, to achieve extremely precise high-quality outcomes. My resistance stemmed from wishing to be engaged in designing/making as an indivisible process, and to be hands on in my doing. If I was to insert a computer between myself and the machine production of parts or even the whole of a model, the activity became very like most architecture. I wanted to be intimately engaged as a maker.

In making these models I wished to avoid two kinds of architectural physical model: the balsa wood or card model made as a highly informative but mostly sacrificial part of exploratory designing, and at the other end of the scale, the extremely slick model typically made for presentation after designing is completed. However, I wanted to make models that were both exploratory and relatively polished in appearance using materials that looked of more substance than balsa and card. I employed good timbers, various metals, and controlled surface finishes to achieve this. Such making entails an element of risk – when making is rejected due to an evolution of my thinking or an inadequacy of production, it may need to be abandoned. There is a considerable time cost, and some financial loss when this happens. Doubt that these are exploratory models has been a common reaction from others. The fact that for most models after the first five, little in the way of drawing was employed to understand what I would make in advance of the making, is either not comprehended, or met with disbelief.

My mode of designing/making as the one process feeds into the made quality of the models in places, accounting for accuracy issues, and sometimes the fit between pieces. This is close to unavoidable without considerable wastage. It is not the principal contributor to my inability to make technically exemplary models – the core issue is insufficient skill. My modelling is eclectic, employing skills and techniques from different disciplines. I have learnt a little of a number of these from specialist makers and from online instructional videos. I am aware that I started the project when nearing fifty and do not have several lifetimes in which to master an array of skills and techniques; I mash them together in ways that serve my ends while probably using some tools and processes in less-than-optimal ways. Patience serves as a substitute for skill. While I have absorbed diverse knowledge of how to make, I do not claim mastery.

An example of issues of experience and skill is evident in the upper surface of the boat-shaped roof in the House of Difficult Memories. At the time of making, I had just bought some woodcarving chisels and I began on this piece to explore the possibilities they offered. Initially, my aim was to make a concave shape without making as much dust as sanding with a powered hand tool. I intended to chisel the wood to near the shape I wanted, and hand sand it to a final finish. Having no prior carving experience, I worked tentatively, scooping out little pieces. The shapes emerging seemed reminiscent of those formed in sand by liquid. I began to carefully control these with the chisels and needed to add a blade and some sandpaper to achieve a satisfying surface form. Had I confidently known what I was doing at the outset and removed wood less cautiously, I expect nothing different from my initial intention would have resulted. While on this occasion I judged the outcome achieved to be successful, most outcomes arising from a lack of skill are less than satisfying. Inadequate skills are sadly manifested in poor fit which may be saved through patient sanding. Sometimes, experience can substitute for skill and a way of making with fit tolerances can be   substituted for the more direct possibility available to a more skilled maker.

Model Photography

 
The photographs of the models were taken on a table with the cleaner side of a large sheet of Fabriano Watercolour paper forming the base and curved up behind each model. It was Covid-19 lockdown time in Melbourne; a new sheet was not easily obtained. (The grubby sheet was replaced after model 38 with a sheet of Hahnemühle Etching mould-made paper.) After an unreasonable amount of exploring different approaches to photographing the models and receiving on-line suggestions and criticisms from others – particularly Tim Shannon who fully engaged with suggesting and remotely evaluating my efforts – I settled on the mode utilised. The models had been photographed in different ways over the years. Typically, the results were too bright, crisp, and analytical in character, as they were taken in full, unmediated sunlight. This method was often useful as transparencies for lectures and was quick to produce on a card-covered outdoor table, but the deep shadows impeded proper description. For this new set of images, I initially tried a partial reveal of the models using predominantly dark backgrounds and thick shadows. While the images were evocative, I moved toward more balanced lighting.

The camera was a tripod-mounted Nikon D850 body. Shutter speeds ranged from 1 second to 1/30^th of a second. The shutter was released by cable. ISO was 100. The lens was a 24-70 mm 2.8 Nikkor predominantly used near 70 mm although I used most of the range of lengths. Apertures used varied from f/8 to f/22 and were mostly toward the stopped down end to maximise the depth of field. Given the number of images produced, I decided against taking far more and stacking them to get focus across the model. The Nikon D850 was mounted on a Manfrotto MT055CXPRO3 tripod with MHXPRO-3W head. The lighting kit available to me consisted of two Manfrotto ML840H LED panel lights with gels mounted on tabletop stands and two Phottix VLED 260 panels mounted on another Manfrotto tripod – although I hand-held a light in many shots moving it around to achieve the outcomes I desired. A little sunlight was allowed at times and a small use of some white reflecting card. The gels were initially to control green colour cast from the Phottix panels; they were also used to attempt to conjure photos reminiscent of late autumnal afternoons. I have included one favourite photo of the Machine for Making Delicacy dating from 2008 which was taken with a Nikon D300 and an 18-200mm lens. Afternoon sunlight casting Victorian Wrought-Iron shadows on a dirty window provided the delicate background; two flashguns were used for fill lighting. Models 40 and 41 were photographed with a Nikon Z9 body and with 85mm 1.8 S Nikkor or 24-70 2.8 S Nikkor lenes. Lighting was a single stand-mounted Phottix Kali 50 panel with barn doors plus the two Manfrotto ML840H LED panel lights with gels mounted on tabletop stands for model 41.

Lightroom Classic sliders were adjusted to taste, and considerable dust-spotting was undertaken; while I blew and brushed and dusted prior to photography, some of these models were not always well-stored and some travelled for exhibitions. In addition, the fragility of many parts meant that spotting, although tedious, was preferable to threatening them with brushes or air sprays.

Construction photos showing process or simply serving as a memory aid have been taken with many different cameras. Initially, I used the Nikon film cameras I owned, and then digital cameras large and small. When my modelling moved away from my camera cupboard in 2011 to my shed, the camera in my pocket (in the form of an iPhone) became the primary tool for recording what I was doing. This led to an initial lowering of quality, but an increase in frequency – often valuable for exploring and understanding processes of designing and making. More recent iPhones are considerably improved.

The Other Works photographs where all taken in by natural light and hand-held: the three craft with a Nikon D800 and a Nikkor 24-120mm f4 lens, the brooch with the same lens and a Nikon D850 body, and The Device for Focussing Aspirations with a Nikon Z9 and a Nikkor Z 135mm 1.8 S Plena lens. The Cathedral drawing is also naturally lit; the camera was a Nikon D800 with a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 lens. My aunt’s photo of me and a spaceship was a colour transparency which I scanned and refurbished as it appeared to have lived a long life on a floor.

Self Portrait

Collectively, these model images and connected texts provide a self-portrait, the whole being probably more revealing and accurate than those painted by most artists. The project is clearly autobiographical and, unlike nearly all painted or photographic portraits it has so far unfurled over twenty-eight years. However, there is more to be conveyed by elaborating some of my world that was a preparation for these models and some of my life in parallel to them.

I am an Emeritus Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Formerly I was Professor of Design Research in The School of Architecture and Design and previously from 1997 its Foundation Head of School. Starting this role rendered modelling improbably ambitious for a period. In bygone times, I held other academic positions.

The above statements are publicly verifiable; the following are variously more privileged claims: I made models and drew endlessly from early childhood; prior to my teens I intended to design things and became increasingly focussed on being an architect after flirting with designing Formula 1 suspension as a future. Realistically, my maths would not have allowed this fourteen-year-old enthusiasm. My painting was better than my maths, but nothing to be celebrated. I never passed year twelve at school and was fortunate to enter The University of Melbourne in 1964 via an interview conducted as part of a trial selection process. After finishing a BArch course, I briefly worked in architects’ offices and later had small moments of collaborative architectural practice – mostly with Marcel Colman with whom I did other designing, photography, and additionally made two short 16mm films. During 1970, I returned to The University of Melbourne with the aid of a scholarship and before long sidled into jobs in other people’s research programs, ultimately completing MArch and PhD degrees while making an academic living. Over the extended and interrupted duration of these part-time degrees, I moved from being a research fellow at Melbourne to a teaching role at RMIT University, and by the time the PhD was submitted at the end of 1983, I was heading the RMIT Department of Architecture.

While both these higher degrees concerned research around designing, in them and subsequently, I also wandered erratically in the realms of philosophy (particularly epistemology and the history and philosophy of science), sneaked over the unguarded disciplinary boundaries of systems theory and cybernetics, wandered into assorted ‘ologies’ such as archaeology, anthropology, ecological psychology, and sociology, and poked about in a range of design disciplines other than architecture. Some of this wandering was formally undertaken through formal study (a bit of philosophy) and working with collaborators in research and teaching projects, and some through inquiring – reading, exploring, and conversing. These fascinations are all revealed in the models; equally, the models informed some of my research activities. I taught a range of approaches to undergraduates from 1973 but from the outset of these models onwards, I predominantly supervised postgraduate students. Many of the PhD candidates I supervised were also engaged in making projects. Their disciplines included architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, sound design, industrial design, fashion, and areas that are challenging to categorise but often focussed on environmental sustainability through designing. Making projects frequently straddled accepted disciplinary borders. Researchers brought rich expertise to their doctorates and enhanced my thinking.

In writing about influences on my approaches and thinking, the obvious people to consider are my parents, and I have given some indications in prior sections of their contributions that are discernible throughout these models. Unquestionably, the other enduring major shaper of who I am has been Marion Pitt. We began to share our lives, love and caring more than twenty years before this modelling project was even thought of, and the voyage is still evolving. She has not been on the disciplinary journey foregrounded here – she has been on her own paths. Together, we have absorbed large quantities of ballet, music, and art, engaged in child and dog rearing, in travelling, and in attempting to understand aspects of the world. Without this close relationship I would be writing a self-portrait of an entirely different person.

There are three others who have been richly significant to the shaping of my design thinking, inquiring, and knowledge in ways not necessarily focussed on the models but evident within them. Long friendships, projects, overlapping interests, and challenging conversations with Marcel Colman (from school in the early 1960s onwards) and with Alex Selenitsch (from 1967 onwards) have endlessly, even relentlessly, shaped me in ways I cannot clearly articulate. The decade of intense collaboration and development with Greg Missingham from 1976 when we first lectured at RMIT, followed by a continuing friendship since, has helped form and challenge the way I think.

Andrea Mina and his model making was the primary inspiration throughout this project. His models were the catalyst that provoked the journey. Andrea and I offered studios on modelling, debated (from notably different positions), and researched together until he was unable to continue. For me, his legacy is alive in each model.

Michael Trudgeon has been a bubbling spring of ideas in my world since 1976. Many years of collaborations with Harriet Edquist (around and beyond architectural history) have shaped my worldview. Suzie Attiwill has long provided valuable alternatives to my thought patterns, and the delightfully challenging thinking of Pia Ednie-Brown has conjured concepts woven through the ways I approach the world. Leon van Schaik fathered the milieu of practice-based research at RMIT, and specifically encouraged my design research work into this realm. I have been fortunate in my co-researchers and collaborators (most notably Ranulph Glanville, Mark Burry, Michael Ostwald, Jane Burry, and Lawrence Harvey) who contributed greatly to my education and ways of thinking, and variously played roles in the development of the models.

For decades I have been an academic. The architect vaguely imagined by my teenage self, emerged from the cocoon, and evolved as a disparate unfurling creature.

Related Writings

I have selected some of my writings which relate to the models shown to enable an exploration of my thinking beyond the limited descriptions provided with the models. There are two related books which were written and published early in this project:

  Peter Downton, Design Research, 2003, Melbourne: RMIT University Press.
  Peter Downton, Design Research, 2013, Kindle Edition.

(Either version is concerned with the idea of designing being a researching activity which produces knowing and knowledge. This thinking evolved considerably in the early years of making these models; they were an introspective laboratory for the writing. The text for the book was started during the making of model number 6 while I was still Head of School in 2000. Initially to be part of a series, it grew a life of its own and continued to develop while I became Research Director for the school. The book has been out of print for a long time. In 2013, in response to emails from around the world, I made a mildly revised Kindle edition which is still available.)

  Peter Downton, Studies in Design Research: Ten Epistemological Pavilions, 2004, Melbourne: RMIT University Press.
(This contains more detailed, but earlier, thinking around the first ten models and their construction. It began before the other book and was initially imagined as an exhibition catalogue.)

In 2004, four lead researchers from RMIT University and the University of Newcastle applied for Australian Research Council Discovery Project funding under the title Spatial Knowledge and the Built Environment: The Design Implications of Making, Processing and Digitally Prototyping Architectural Models. This research, when funded, was carried out over three years, and exhibited each year at the Melbourne Museum. There were three resultant books and three exhibition catalogues preceding the books. In each case I wrote about these models and others wrote about their approaches. The books are:

  Mark Burry, Michael Ostwald, Peter Downton, Andrea Mina, 2010, Homo Faber III: Modelling, Identity and the Post Digital, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne.
  Peter Downton, Andrea Mina, Michael Ostwald, Mark Burry, 2008, Homo Faber II: Modelling Ideas, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne.
  Mark Burry, Michael Ostwald, Peter Downton, Andrea Mina, 2007, Homo Faber I: Modelling Architecture, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne.

The following are book chapters where I have offered ideas about these models and their role in research-based practice and knowledge production:

  Peter Downton, ‘Ways of Constructing: Epistemic, Temporal and Productive Aspects of Design Research’, in Elizabeth Grierson and Laura Brearley (eds), Creative Arts Research: Narratives of Methodologies and Practices, 2009, Rotterdam, Sense Publishers.
  Peter Downton, ‘Maps of what might be: a dozen works on ideas and possibilities’, in William Cartwright, Georg Gartner and Antje Lehn (eds), Cartography and Art, 2009, Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
  Peter Downton, ‘The Referential, the Speculative and the Projective: attributes of models in architectural inquiry’, in Michael Ostwald, Chris Tucker and Michael Chapman, Residue: Architecture as a Condition of Loss, 2007, Melbourne, RMIT University Press.
  Peter Downton, ‘One model, two model, three model, for designing, knowing and learning’, in Mick Douglas (ed) Invention Intervention: industrial design research, 2004, Melbourne, RMIT University Press.
  Peter Downton, ‘Chapter 5: Theory’s Cupboard: Myths of Knowing, Form, Memes and Models’, in Michael J Ostwald and R John Moore (eds), Re-Framing Architecture: Theory, Science and Myth, 2000, Sydney, Archadia Press.

The following are journal articles/papers where informative ideas for and about these models and their role in research-based practice and knowledge production are offered:

  Peter Downton, ‘Research, Janus, Practice’ Landscape Review, 2023, 19(2), pp3-7.
  Peter Downton, ‘The unmoored model adrift from the shores of purpose and function’, Theatre and Performance Design, 2018, 4:1-2, 134-148.
  Peter Downton, ‘Doing little drawings: a study of intention and relationship in a design research project’, Kathi Holt-Damant and Paul Sanders (eds) Drawing Together: convergent practises in architectural education, Refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australia (AASA), Brisbane, 2005, University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology.
   Peter Downton, ‘Design Noise, Liminality and Non-knowledge’, European Academy of Design, 6^th International Conference March 2005, Bremen, Germany.
  Peter Downton, ‘The azure sky, the design made’, in John Redmond, David Durling and Arthur de Bono (eds) Futureground, Design Research Society International Conference Volume 1: Abstracts, Melbourne, 2004, Monash University Faculty of Art and Design.
  Peter Downton, ‘Knowing by Designing’, in Research by Design: International conference, Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology in co-operation with EAAE/AEEA, 2000.
  Peter Downton, ‘Knowing research: researching, knowledge and designing’, in Silvia Pizzocaro, Amilton Arruda and Dijon de Moraes (eds), Design plus Research: Proceedings of the Politecnico di Milano Conference May 18-20, 2000, Milan: PhD programme in Industrial Design, Politecnico di Milano, 43-48.
  Peter Downton, ‘The canon: a site of architectural epistemology’, in Julie Willis, Philip Goad and Andrew Hutson (eds), Firm(ness) Commodity DE-light?: Questioning the Canons, papers from the fifteenth Annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia, 1998, 43-49.
  Peter Downton, ‘On Knowledge in Architecture and Science’, in Australia and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference Proceedings, Wellington, NZ, 1998.
  Peter Downton, ‘The Migration Metaphor in Architectural Epistemology’ in Stephen Cairns and Philip Goad (eds) Building Dwelling Drifting: migrancy and the limits of architecture – papers from the 3rd ‘Other Connections’ Conference, The Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, 1997: 82-88.
  Peter Downton, ‘Of clouds, cant, canticles and currawongs: discussing theory / hymning architecture / contemplating complexity’, ACCESSORY / Architecture Conference Proceedings Vol 2, Auckland: Department of Architecture, University of Auckland, New Zealand, 1995, 39-48.