In our increasingly digital world, we can become distanced from the physical act of making. Architectural models can function as beautiful artefacts, representing completed designs in perfect miniature scale. But there is also value in the making itself, trying things out, getting messy, and creating things that "fail".

For our annual research week, we wanted to focus on that hands-on, imperfect, iterative process - one that reflects nearly four decades of Hawkins\Brown. In that time, our model shop has created over five hundred models, ranging from the quick and sketchy to painstakingly perfect, using 3D printers, lollipops, cut-up storybooks and bits of old plumbing.

All of these types were represented in our exhibition Model Matters, which filled our studios with models from the Hawkins\Brown archive and reconfigured our Clerkenwell shopfront for live making. This was then the backdrop for a packed programme, including talks from esteemed curator Vanessa Norwood and UCL Bartlett professors Laura Allen and Mark Smout, who shared their work and perspectives on model making, as well as riotous experimentation and colour in our lunchtime facade workshop.