Yu-Chin Ku & Janneke Derksen

Vincent de Rijk has been working as an industrial designer, furniture maker and model builder for more than 20 years. He is trained at the Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven where he graduated in 1986, a year later he started his Werkplaats Vincent de Rijk in Rotterdam. His best known works are a series of bowls in ceramic with polyester resin, and many architectural models, primarily for OMA. The INSIDE students were invited to his studio for a model making workshop dedicated to Studio The School of the Future.

When and why did you decide to open your studio for the INSIDE students? It is about seven years ago since I start to give workshops on model making at INSIDE. Before that I taught at Design Academy Eindhoven and other academies but the courses were usually quite short. When Hans Venhuizen (head of the department) asked me to join INSIDE, we decided to have a workshop of at least three, or preferably fve, days. In this way the students can really work on their assignment and fnally come up with a resin model of the design they work on that specifc moment. It is still quite a short time to really make something but when the workshop is scheduled at the right moment for the students to work and they have a general idea already, it works out well. This year most students had a concept, so it was easier for them to get an idea of what to make. This is always a challenge because the students frst need to learn the techniques of making a resin model but if that’s done, then you can relatively work fast. We didn’t really have much time this year but I still think the products you made were quite nice, effective and quickly made. It is not always like that, sometimes half of the group give up and don’t fnish the model. I prepared the workshop this year to try to avoid that and every student could make something. Although some of the models were more like objects, and thus not containing a lot of information, they are still nice pieces to explain your project and to use in your presentation.

In the workshop you told us to simplify the information we want to show and reduce the complexity of the project in order to make a good model. How much information is needed to produce a conceptual model? It is not always easy to make a translation from a concept to the actual project or product. In any case I think it is important that students start to make something without knowing everything and to reduce the complexity, else you don’t have a model at the end. That’s what I learned from my collaboration with architectural offces, like OMA. They will never say ‘Ok, we know what we want and here is the information.’ There is always a huge stack of information, but not very clear and nothing decided yet. This is quite common. To create a starting point I try to make an interpretation of the project by fnding out what could be the main elements to show in the model.

Sharp fnished models are usually perceived as presentation objects. Do you consider that a resin model could also become a tool for architects to rethink their projects? Many architects work in this way and yes, it can be really helpful. That’s what I learned in, let’s say, “the OMA school”; they start as soon as possible with very sketchy materials like foam and as soon as there is more information, they try it out with making more models. This process is nowadays less usual because of renderings, drawings and 3d printing models. It is