Tucked away in a corner of the Art and Architecture Building is a huge workshop filled with everything from saws and sanders to sophisticated laser cutters and sheet plastic thermoformers.
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On busy days, a cacophony of sounds fills the room as students from the Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning (TCAUP) and the School of Art & Design (A&D) cut, shape and mold materials into models, mockettes, prototypes and artwork.
When the students encounter a difficult operation, Mark Krecic and staff members always are ready to lend a helping hand.
Krecic’s degree in art and his background as a potter, woodworker, sculptor and builder made him a natural model maker. “Model making is an eclectic craft form. It covers many arenas of craft and trade, in wood, metal and plastic, and it covers both traditional and modern technology,” says Krecic, senior model maker at the art and architecture shop who has worked there for 28 years.
Model making plays an integral part in the students’ visual education. “Model making is a realization process. Concept realization is an important step in the learning process,” he says. “We give students the opportunity to verify ideas that would otherwise be speculation. They have to touch and feel the materials to know what they are creating.”
TCAUP students build a range of models, from things that may not yet exist to accurate scale representations of existing architecture. A&D students, on the other hand, might build miniatures of artwork that they are contemplating—up to and including a finished piece, as well as presentation accessories. This gives them a better idea of how their designs will look to the viewer.
“In the research stage of design or architecture, models are used to test ideas,” Krecic says. By making models, students have a three-dimensional representation of the idea they have designed and visualized, and they are able to see how their ideas work in a realistic context.
Having to use the array of tools and equipment in the workshop can be daunting. Krecic makes sure that first-time users undergo a thorough orientation, in which he teaches them the proper and safe way to handle the equipment, how to organize their shop needs and how to acquire assistance.
After orientation, he gives students guidance with the specific equipment. In traditional crafting, he can help a student use the drill, saw, sanding machine and other tools to cut pieces of wood and a variety of other materials. As work in model making increasingly becomes automated, Krecic also finds himself giving students technical training on how to use machines such as the laser cutter to give form to computer-rendered designs.
Krecic finds that the most stimulating part of his job is in being able to help students better communicate their ideas to a population and environment that always is changing. In this regard, he says, “A model maker is part craftsman and part magician.”
