20 Imagined Landscapes: Material Models for Innovation and Discovery

20 Imagined Landscapes explores how physical models shape creative thinking in landscape architecture, architecture, and art. Through essays centered on individual models, contributors reflect on how working with materials such as wood, clay, and metal, alongside emerging fabrication tools, generates ideas, tests spatial relationships, and communicates design intent. The book examines the embodied and iterative nature of model-making as a process grounded in touch, observation, and experimentation rather than linear problem-solving. At a time when digital tools dominate design practice, these essays reaffirm the enduring value of tactile exploration and craftsmanship, revealing physical models as powerful instruments of discovery and storytelling.

• Explores model-making strategies across architecture, landscape architecture, and art
• Featuring 20 leading voices from both established and emerging practices
• Including contributions from OLIN, OMA, Studio Gang, MVRDV, SNØHETTA, BIG and other internationally recognized studios

Trevor Lee is a Partner at OLIN, the Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design studio. His work explores how cultural, technological, and ecological frameworks shape immersive public landscapes. He has taught widely, including roles at the University of Tennessee, the University of Pennsylvania, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Syracuse University, with projects spanning cities across the United States and internationally.