When creating accessible 3D printed buildings for visually impaired people, the first thing that comes to mind is let’s make it small enough to handle, but large enough to feel the important details. But let’s expand on this a little bit, because in practice there is so much more complexity to it.
When we start one of the building projects, my first question always is, if it is doable at all. Sometimes a miniature will not create more accessibility, though there are other ways around it where at least the most important features can be communicated. But ideally when working on a building, I try to approach the entire building as much as possible.
Probably the first thing to look at is the building size. We have to decide on the scale we will use to make a good representation of the original. The scale is also useful when we communicate the size of the building to the end user, it is easier to imagine what the original may look like.
When we decide on the scale, besides being able to represent features so that they are large enough to touch, the final size of the replica will also be important. It largely depends on how a building will be used. If it is a home decoration or a collectors’ item, generally smaller sizes are preferred, we try to keep these under 5-6 inches. If the building is for a public exhibit and only one will be displayed, we can go much larger, thus showing more features, and work them out in much greater detail.
Let’s look at an extreme example, the Empire State Building, which is roughly 1200 feet tall. If we represented it at a scale of 1:1000, it would still be 1.2 feet tall, so each level would be about 0.35 millimeters, or 0.15 inches. So at this scale, it is hardly possible to make a good visual representation, not to mention the tactile aspect. It will not be possible to feel the individual levels. But there is another problem, printing out such a tall building is generally not possible on a standard 3D printer, but even on a large printer it would take quite a bit of time and material. A regular office 3D printer will be able to print a building that is about 20 centimeters, so we would have to go to a higher scale, at least 1:1500.
Here we can do one of two things with the representation of the levels, we can either omit them and just concentrate on the shape of the building, or cheat and show a few levels and not match it to the actual number of floors. The second is not necessarily a good solution.
But if we only represent the shape of the building, it will not be necessary to make it as tall as the printer can handle, because it will not make a practical difference. In order to represent the shape of the building, 4-5 inches will be more than sufficient.
When we work with smaller buildings where a better representation is possible, for example one that is 100 feet wide, we can work with a 1:200 scale and the result will be 0.5 feet that is not too big and will comfortably fit on a regular 3D printer. Here we can represent much smaller details.
With smaller buildings we will run into other difficulties. While it is possible to represent individual elements, they maybe too close to feel what is in between. An example would be an entrance with columns with the door behind, or a balcony with doors and windows. While here a tactile representation would be possible based on size, because of the columns or the railing on the balcony it is impossible to feel what’s behind because even the thinnest finger will not fit in. In case of a larger building, we would just omit these elements, but for a small building the only way to make it accessible on the full building to make it a much smaller scale so that each component could be felt. But this will unnecessarily make the entire building much larger, and while you could put your fingers through the columns, the rest of the elements will be bigger than necessary. Then we are back to the problem of printing it out in such a large size, the time and material will not be worth it. Thus, representing the shape will have to suffice. You can feel that there is a balcony, or the columns at the front and it will be obvious that there must be a door behind, but even if it is visually discernible, it is not going to provide a good tactile experience.
Here I would like to mention that if for any reason it is necessary to make a building too wide or too tall, we can make it from several pieces which can either have a connector or we can also glue it together.
But at the end of the day, what matters is what is important to feel about a building. Simply, with a small replica, some details will get lost. This is why we create several models of the building to show individual features.
I call this a zoom approach. Think about it this way. If you can see a building, and approach it from the far you will not concentrate on what is the window like on the 48th floor. Instead, you will admire the grandeur of the building that you will lose when you get too close. And this is what we want to represent on a model. Let’s face it, representing each floor of a building is not necessary when dozens of floors look the same. Rather, it is more important to show an individual level, or maybe a few on top of one another so that you can understand how they fit together.
In this case, we would make one building that represents the general shape, then a much larger magnification of a few levels.
For example, when we created the Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi, though the individual levels could be counted, their shape is not tactile, particularly because each level has a protruding edge. Therefore, we cut off the top five floors and the top of the building and magnified it. It was interesting because unlike many tall buildings, the top of the tower is wider than most of the building. This way we had two tactile components where users can feel the shape of the building, and then can get a sense of the top, which will allow the understanding of what the levels would feel like throughout.
But sometimes, the significance of the building is not about the external appearance, but in order to understand the entire concept the shape of the building is important, too. For example, we made a building which was quite large, but in the middle it had two domes, but one of the most important features was the decoration inside the individual domes. Thus, we created the entire building which was almost as big as a regular printer could handle, but in the middle on the top there were the two domes which in this case were only about an inch wide. At this scale, we could not represent the dome. Thus, we created two more models, representing only the domes, in about a 20 centimeter diameter, where one could feel the individual windows.
But there were dozens of windows, and reproducing everything practically doesn’t make sense, for example at a touch tour of the building, there is a point where most visitors will not be interested in exploring the 60th window. Therefore, we looked at the domes, and for each, we picked 5 windows and made a large representation of them so that people can touch the shape of the painting of the stain glass. This is more than enough to give an overall tactile representation of what the building feels like, in and out.
When concentrating on the internals of the building it is almost more difficult then the exteriors, because it is not the actual representation, rather a selection of what would be typical of a building, there are buildings with dozens of statues and hundreds of windows, and it will be subjective which one will the designer pick, but regardless it gives a tactile idea of what the building can possibly look like.
At the very beginning of the design process we have to decide about what detail we are going to represent, what is it that we need to leave out, or what is important enough to create a secondary model that simply cannot be represented at the original scale. Of course there are some instances where sticking to accuracy is not as important as showing something. For that matter, full accuracy cannot be achieved especially if we have to work with pictures and descriptions. But in some instances columns need to be slightly thicker than what they would be at the chosen scale, because they would be so fin that printing wouldn’t be possible. Or there are instances when features of the wall, or shingles on the roof are interesting to show, here it is not necessary to work with the exact count, rather the feel and the pattern.
Ultimately, when it comes to making a tactile experience of a building, the work is a compromise. We can represent shapes, ideas but there is so much to it that 3D printing is not able to communicate, such as exact color, texture, warmth, etc. But this is not the goal either, it is more important to provide a reasonably good understanding of the architecture, satisfy curiosity, or maybe educate a little bit.
Have you thought about a miniature building you always wanted to have while reading this article? Contact us, and we will be happy to make it for you.
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