<p>I think industrial design is a good suggestion. My daughter is majoring in that and much of the coursework involves advanced fabrication and modeling techniques. Of course if you study architecture you will get to build a lot of models, you just won’t be doing it for a living when you graduate.</p>
<p>I think between China and the computer the profession of architectural model making has been pretty well killed off. We will occasionally hire students at minimum wage to build study models for us, but the big models are produced in China or by a couple of large, highly automated, national firms. In the 80’s there were a ton of great model shops around the country producing $100,000 models of office buildings for the leasing centers. Those days are over. We can visualize things so well with computer renderings, that it is rare when a client asks for a physical model. With 3D printing dropping in cost I think that is where the next wave of physical models is going to come from. </p>
<p>rick</p>