Elliot Morgan

UNiversity of Auckland

Next up from UoA in the SUYT series is Elliot who describes model making as a critical process for his design thesis. Read on to find out more…

Student Architecture Network New Zealand: In 20 words, what is your thesis about?
Elliot Morgan: Mental health. Proposing a way to address New Zealand’s current mental health crisis through a preliminary mode of treatment for depression.

SANNZ: Who is your supervisor and why did you choose to work with him/her
EM: Sarosh Mulla. I had a successful semester with him in a previous design studio. Sarosh is a fountain of knowledge and can comfortably address all the variable parameters of a project like mine. He’s not only really passionate about my work, but we’re also both very passionate about model making.

SANNZ: Is model making a key part of your design method?
EM: It is, I tend work through a language of model making. I’m interested in pushing resources like the laser cutter into new and unexpected territories. The same might be said with what I’m doing with plastic and acrylic at the moment. Though the technologies are familiar, I seem to conceive a building’s face or its form through the techniques in sets of precursory models.

SANNZ: You’re now half way, what have you discovered so far through your model making that links back to your thesis question?
EM: I would say I work in a highly controlled manner, and some things that I’m beginning to appreciate are the undesired or unexpected outcomes of model making. I have been working with the vacuum former and acrylic and I find that the unanticipated results are what I actually prefer, and through those models I begin to find new avenues that I start to pull buildings from. I found in my mid-year critique that your idea is just as important as it looks, and I spoke more about my concept than the models. So, without the foundation concept the models don’t mean anything. But like the model making outcomes, there’s no exact answer to address depression through architecture, and that comes through success and failure.

SANNZ: When you started thinking about your thesis did you think your thesis would take this direction?
EM: Not entirely, but more or less I knew it would become redefined and I was open to it changing. I was always aware there was an outward expectation that my thesis, being more or less about therapy through design, might develop thematically with due references to Pallasmaa and Zumthor, because of their therapeutic extensions into architecture. At a point I knew I wanted to challenge these expectations for mental health care, which forced me to change gears.

SANNZ: Your thesis is about therapy and your process is model making. Model making can be therapeutic, do you have an ideal work environment that fosters your process?
EM: Ideally later in the evening, when the studio is quiet and I don’t have to try and avoid distractions around me. I can put on a pair of reading glasses and make my tiny, tiny buildings. Though there’s no time that I’m not keen to make a model. And I think that can be said about mental health treatment, there’s no time it shouldn’t be accessible and you might see that reflected in my project outcome.

SANNZ: Do you work while studying and if so, how many hours? How do you find the balance?
EM: I work in the laser cutting lab here at Uni, which proves to be very useful because I’ll be cutting anything that I can get my hands on. On top of that, I tutor second year students once a week with Michael Milojevic and Nathan Swaney. I think tutoring students is so inspiring, you learn so much from those in the years below you. I find those sessions refreshing. I enjoy having hours that I set aside for work, and hours that I have to set aside for thesis.

SANNZ: How do you celebrate after critiques? Any go-tos?
EM: I wanted to approach my thesis with a focused mind. My return from Munich and my travel overseas helped me understand the benefits to maintaining a healthy lifestyle as well as a strong academic mind set. There was a point after my mid-year critique where I felt like I had a comfortable understanding about my thesis topic. After a heavy research period of trying to find information that really solidified what I was talking about, I spent a little bit of relaxing and having a break from it. So in the form of celebration, it was allowing myself to become self-reflective in my off time.