Making models part of job

THE greatest part of my job is being allowed to transform a dream into a reality.

It's not something I was ready for coming from the abstract and conceptual world of university, but that first time I saw an idea built, it was an amazing feeling.

I still remember my first project: a small, very modest basement renovation in the city of Westmount in Montreal. I saw it finished just after graduating from McGill university's School of Architecture.

After years of imagining things without consequence, I was confronted with the three-dimensional reality of my architectural musings.

It was an incredible feeling of surprise and satisfaction, and proved to be a very important learning experience as well.

Certain features that looked good to me on paper were less convincing in reality while other elements that I had concerns about during the design phase seemed to work out OK in the end.

Through my early years of design work I would always build a physical model of the project I was working on. Made from cardboard or heavier weight watercolour paper, these miniature creations helped me fully understand the three-dimensional form I was creating.

I would bring the model up to eye level and pretend to inhabit the tiny world, trying my best to get a feel for the object and space being created.

A past employer of mine, an architect who I looked up to greatly and saw as a mentor, was Ray Griffin of Dalla-Lana/Griffin Architects. Ray would tell me to draw lots of sketch "snapshot" perspectives of the interior and exterior details of a design to ensure what I was creating was taking the form and look I had hoped.

Even for the experienced eye it's nearly impossible to fully see and understand a set of two-dimensional plans and sections as a threedimensional space. Sketching details and building models helped take the guess work out of the process.

As years went by, I would take note of spaces and forms I liked and would even go as far as to sketch an element that interested me or pace out a room if I liked its proportion and scale.

Colour combinations that worked were always put to memory, as were the use of interesting materials or the creation of interesting compositions.

It's essential when designing three-dimensional space to have a grasp of what the space will feel like when built. This can be very challenging when one's limited to a two-dimensional graphic medium.

I still sketch when designing but seem to do it most in the early schematic design phase of a project. Once these broad-stroke conceptual ideas are in place, I typically move to 3-D graphic software to work-up the design in more detail.

The beauty of this type of computer software is that it allows me to quickly and easily mock-up a "virtual" world to test my ideas. I was able to create a simple 3D fly-through for my design of the Cliffhanger House (discussed in previous columns) with a program called Google SketchUp that provided my clients with a very clear understanding of what I was proposing.

(interested readers can see it at cliffhangerhouse.com).

Regardless of the process or the software, the objective is the same: fully understand what's being designed before it's built.

The more one knows and understands a design in the virtual world, the better it will be in the real world in the end.

Kevin Vallely is a residential designer in North Vancouver. Follow along Kevin's "small house" design at cliffhangerhouse.com.