Residential and topographic models for Nomarq

The project

Nomarq commissioned Archicercle to make models that would explain the form of its houses and their relationship with the surroundings. The documented work includes 1:200 architectural models in white polypropylene and a topographic model made from a 3D file.

The residential models focused on the site and the main building volumes, with limited interior detail. Archicercle’s contribution was to make physical models of Nomarq’s architecture, translating each house and its surroundings into a scale representation.

For these models, we used white polypropylene and stacked layers. The layers form a stepped representation of the terrain around the building volumes. The models retain a pared-back, white appearance, with schematic planting providing a reference to the surroundings.

The topographic model used a different method: CNC milling a block of expanded polystyrene. Here, the relief was carved from the material using information held in a three-dimensional file, rather than built up from stacked layers.

Preparing the file was part of the fabrication work. We reduced the number of nodes in the contour lines to a minimum so that the large amount of terrain data could be processed and used for machining.

Once milled, the topographic piece was bonded to a composite board base. The two methods—stacking layers and milling a block—give physical form to architecture and terrain in different ways, keeping the site central to the representation.

The 1:200 scale places the house within its surroundings without developing the interior spaces in detail.

For the topographic model, preparing the contour lines comes before milling the block.

Processes and materials: fabrication services · available materials · studio machinery.