At the back of American designer Giancarlo Valle’s New York studio, there’s a room that looks as though it could be a Wallace and Gromit film set. Shelves are lined with maquettes from architecture and interior-design projects, which include miniature furniture pieces such as thumb-sized lampshades and chairs no larger than hens’ eggs. 

For Valle, who trained as an architect, these small-scale buildings and furnishings are integral to his practice, which encompasses architecture, interiors and the decorative arts for residential and commercial projects. His studio has designed lofts in New York, villas in St Barths and residences in Mexico City. “We work on a lot of interior architecture, so using models is important,” says Valle. “They help you to understand the proportions or height of something – both essential when it comes to composition.” 

The team spends hours crafting and then rearranging the sculptures within the maquettes. The studio has acquired a 3D printer that renders products in materials such as aluminium and wood. But sculpting pieces by hand from clay is still a large part of the creative process. “It’s fun,” says Valle, picking up a hand-moulded chair.

“As a creative person, one of the most rewarding things that you can achieve is an element of surprise,” he says. “There is a lot of planning in architecture, so you know what you’re going to get. But this process also allows you to do unexpected things,” he adds, holding up a green couch about the size of a deck of cards. He places it back on the shelf, next to a miniature coffee table. “Models force you to edit your work. With a computer, you can make objects as big or as small as you want. But with models, you actually have to make decisions.” 

The sculptures also act as a kind of visible archive that the team can tap in to at any point. “Having them in the space is a big part of the way we work,” says Valle, who often uses old models to inspire new projects. “We take ideas and repurpose them,” he adds, looking around the room at the various models, which resemble unfinished dolls’ houses. “There’s no formula to it. Sometimes we start on a computer and other times we start on a model but the idea is to keep things visible.”

Monocle follows Valle to the main room, where an employee is painting a maquette with squiggles and half-moon shapes in shades of black and gold. We then travel downstairs to a studio with a long, crafting worktable. Creating models in this way ensures that the team comes up with innovative design ideas that haven’t been perpetuated online. “It’s our remedy for internet algorithms,” says Valle. “Everything is digital now and everyone sees the same things. There’s no way to break out of that cycle unless you create your own analogue algorithm,” he says, gesturing to the shelves lined with objects and tools. “A generation of work is being created that is just referential; a recycling of ideas,” he says. “You have to invent your own world.”

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