ABSTRACT
In a quest towards creative structural awareness, the present work inscribes within a broader debate about the mode of reasoning in structural studies. The research of Robert Le Ricolais at the University of Pennsylvania is discussed here as a paradigm of creative practice employing design-erly ways in structural studies; offering an original insight about the potential of the physical model; as a conceptual device (“hierogram”) pertaining in the design realm beyond the in-scale representation (“apparatus”) confined in the scientific paradigm. Physical models – as an instance of modelling – are regarded as a fundamental methodological means in structural design studies, thus becoming the vehicle to tackle epistemological issues about the synthetic nature of the discipline. From this perspective, Le Ricolais’ research practices become all the more relevant in a most contemporary discourse about the “informal”, a differentiated structural design rationale.
