Tangible virtuality—perceptions of computer-aided and physical modelling

Designing—giving form to new objects or environments—is largely a question of anticipating the workings of spatial and material environments, which can become ‘reality’ only by being built. Until ‘realized’, a design is essentially a figment of the designerʹs imagination, although his or her ideas may be laid down and conveyed to others via specialized design media. In this way, impressions of the design may be shared with clients, colleagues or other ‘actors’ in the design process. roducts of the designerʹs imaging process can be relatively abstract or begin to approach future reality. Form & Media research can be ‘revealing’, stimulating insights concerning preferences, working processes and the effects of products of the designerʹs imagination. In the past 10 years, we have gained considerable practical experience with both virtual and tangible (scale) models. We have compared different techniques in conference workshops, within educational settings and in our Form & Media research laboratory. The research projects ranged from the development of practical techniques and working methods to protocol analyses of designing architects. ontribution draws comparisons between different computer-aided modelling techniques, with an indication of their perspectives, making use of the experience gained from various experiments in an educational context, and will highlight the potentials for different combinations of digital and physical modelling techniques.