| Number: | 021 |
| Year: | 2024–2025 |
| Name: | Graduate Thesis Studio: Translations |
| Location: | USC Architecture |
| Type: | Design Studio |
| Project Team: | Gillian Shaffer, Lauren Brown, Rita Jirjees, Nayla Alejandre, Khun Yeyint Hein, Jennifer Dominguez Hernandez, David Crawford, Christopher Panzella, Kelly (Chien Hua) Yu, Bingqing Li, Aditi Amol Pawar |
Architectural models, traditionally understood through their representational or aesthetic roles, can also be conceptualized as generative instruments within broader cultural and epistemological frameworks. As Kersten Geers observes, a model is capable—like a plan—of producing other models, objects, and ideas. Reframing model making as a cultural technique reveals its capacity to participate in the circulation of images and the construction of knowledge. Through practices such as digital manipulation, photographic abstraction, and parallax documentation, models operate at the intersection of reality and representation. Within this mediated condition, architectural models serve as critical tools for engaging the complexities of contemporary urbanism—where questions of climate, geopolitics, cultural identity, and technological transformation intersect with the spatial and discursive production of the city.
