Knowing (by) building. Full-scale models in design space envisioning

Italian architect Umberto Riva has often expressed his secret wish to be allowed to build a former project, experience it and demolish it in order to re-build it with an higher acknowledge. Such a rare privileged condition is partially achieved by architect’s working back on his works years later or by his direct decisional engaging in the building phases. In the continuous research for the most exhaustive and involving envisioning tool, able both to give back the artist a wide spatial knowledge of his own design and the client a heartening image of his endeavour, full-scale modelling can offer a very realistic experience of a project. Mock-ups were used by Renaissance and Baroque artists to design the visual corrections to be applied to their geometric proportionated buildings, but they can be conceived as a direct-forming tool as they can convey unpredictable feed-backs to their author as well as productively involving clients in a participated design process.