Tulane Faculty Video: Making

Produced by Irene Keil, professor of practice, Tulane School of Architecture and Allison Schiller, Tulane Architecture graduate student. Documentation of a one-week workshop at the Tulane School of Architecture in the summer of 2009. Michael Gruber, an architect with Richard Meier and Partners in Los Angeles, visited the Tulane School of Architecture June 14-17 to conduct a model building workshop for the summer school architecture students as part of their design curriculum. He introduced the students to tools and various methods of wood model construction, and in subsequent shop sessions students, under his guidance practiced cutting, joinery, and assembly techniques, culminating in a façade model for the Maison Domino issued as a studio design project. The newly acquired model building skills were integrated into the courses following the workshop and students fabricated wood models throughout the summer at various stages of their designs. Michael graduated from SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and began working for Richard Meiers office three days after his thesis presentation. Together with Robert Mangurian and two other students, a model studio for the new Getty Center project was established and run by Michael. Nearly every aspect of the Getty complex was studied there in model form over the course of ten years in all, six large site models and about two hundred other study models were constructed, ranging in scale from sixteenth-inch-scale study models to three-inch scale …
Video Rating: 5 / 5