Architectural model

They are made using a variety of materials including paper, plaster, plastic, resin, wood, glass, and metal.

Models are built either with traditional handcraft techniques or via 3D printing technologies such as stereolithography, fused filament fabrication, and selective laser sintering.

Modern packages include advanced features such as databases of components, automated engineering calculations, visual fly-throughs, dynamic reflections, and accurate textures and colors.

[4][5] As an extension to CAD (computer-aided design) and BIM (building information modeling), virtual reality architectural sessions are also being adopted.

Several companies produce ready-made pieces for structural components (e.g., girders, beams), siding, furniture, figures (people), vehicles, trees, bushes, and other features that are found in the models.

Increasingly, rapid prototyping techniques such as 3D printing and CNC routing are used to automatically construct models directly from CAD plans.

Apart from kings and princes, cork models were collected by people such as Filippo Farsetti (1703–1744) in Venice, Pierre Gaspard Marie Grimod d'Orsay (1748–1809), and the architect Louis-François Cassas in France, Charles Townley, or Sir J. Soane in London, who turned his home into a museum, and Sir John Soane's Museum, housing a collection of 14 models in cork of Roman and Greek buildings.

In France, the Musée des Antiquités Nationales à Saint-Germain-en-Laye has works by Rosa,[7] Lucandeli[8] and Pelet.