Topographical contour model in 4 sections.

Orkney Islands Council asked us to produce this stylized representation of the Scapa Flow area which was to be used for marketing events and as focal point for internal meetings. Due to the size of the model (1.8m x 1.4m) it was constructed in four sections that could be stacked in a flight case for storage and transportation but could also be quickly fitted together when required. Although the islands show a simplified representation of the contours at 25m steps, the main purpose of the model was to illustrate the water depths in Scapa Flow and the surrounding seas. Sea charts normally show the deep areas in lighter blues but because this model was going to be viewed by mixed audiences the client asked us to reverse this colour coding and show the deeper areas in the darker colour. If you click on the main pic to enlarge it you’ll notice we also supplied a Perspex overlay which shows the relative size of Edinburgh to Scapa Flow. This is the third project we’ve completed for Orkney Islands Council this year.

University Campus Model – Scale 1:333

Produced for Queens University Belfast, this master-planning model was commissioned to illustrate the existing and proposed developments within the university’s Health Sciences campus. A major part of the model making process involved the co-ordination of many different drawings for the numerous buildings on site. As well as this, a lengthy site visit was required during which we took over 300 photographs and surveyed the general levels across the overall area of the model. The significant buildings were modelled in high detail with the context buildings shown as accurate massing blocks.

 Repeat Orders mean a busy start to 2014

As well as working on a very big commission that’s going to take us several months we’ve also just completed these two projects which are actually repeat orders of models we made over a year ago. It’s quite common for clients to come back to us for a second version or even multiple versions of models we’ve previously made for them. Usually this is because the first model proves so useful it becomes well worth having additional units made – often this can be at a reduced cost. The yellow model is a lightweight, life-size display model of a Subsea Control Module, a piece of equipment for the off-shore oil industry (the real thing was extremely heavy and difficult to transport). The other model is a two part display comprising the internal components of toner cartridges and was designed to demonstrate the simplicity of the client’s product compared with a conventional cartridge.

Interactive industrial model at 1:250 scale

When the guys at DHL (UK) spotted we’d made models for both UK Mail and Hermes they knew we were the right company to supply a high quality model of their brand new southern depot at Poyle, near Windsor. Like the UK Mail and Hermes models, this needed to be a “roof-off” view of the building showing the huge investment in sophisticated sorting machinery within the new depot. DHL actually went a step further and asked us to make the model interactive so that ten specific areas of the machinery could be illuminated individually at the touch of a button (you can see the buttons in the main pic above). The most difficult part of this project was deciphering the CAD info for the machinery and then modelling the complex industrial components to a slightly simplified but recognisable level. We then had to work out how to build in the LEDs so that only the relevant areas lit up. All in all, it was a very technically demanding brief but DHL were very clear what they wanted and we delivered!