Architectural Model Exhibits
Our exhibits celebrate the creativity of local and international designers and firms by connecting audiences to the process of architectural design. Through physical and digital models, architectural renderings, and other displays, exhibits unveil how architecture and design shape our everyday lives.
2026 Exhibit: EMERGENCE
In EMERGENCE, SAF’s 27th Architectural Model Exhibit, participants showcase the dynamic processes that bring design to life. From the growth of neighborhoods and the evolution of materials to adaptive reuse of existing structures, the exhibit investigates how external forces—social, political, environmental, and others—give rise to new designs that help communities adapt to our changing world. Experience the exhibit online
Experience the exhibit online
Past Exhibits
2024 - BOLIGLABORATORIUM: A Danish Housing Lab
BOLIGLABORATORIUM: A Danish Housing Lab presented six architectural models of experimental housing projects across urban and rural Denmark. The models addressed challenges related to housing affordability, new family and living patterns, environmental sustainability, shrinking rural areas, and more. The models were first exhibited at the 2023 World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen. The exhibit was presented in the United States by Scan Design Foundation, and traveled around the Pacific Northwest between winter 2024 and spring 2025.
2022 - Junction
“JUNCTION”, SAF’s 25th Architectural Model Exhibit, illuminated and invited us to reflect on the dual craving for spaces that celebrate individual pathways as well as those that promote collaboration. What connections will our society choose to build as we navigate an uncertain future? How can intelligent design create spaces – physical, virtual, or imagined – that honor identity while promoting cohesion?
2020 - Iterations
Iterations celebrated the germination of a design idea and how it's nurtured over time through the exploration of writing, drawing, modeling and material studies. These studies served a myriad of functions, whether they depicted the architectural elements employed, represented the building in its site, or served to test a custom detail or connection. Iterations examined the dynamics of the design process, demonstrated the path to a final concept, and illustrated the influence a completed project has on the continuing evolution of the built environment.
2023 - CommUNITY
"CommUNITY", SAF’s 26th Architectural Model Exhibit, invited us to reflect on architecture as a catalyst for interaction, connections, and community. By decentering hyper-individuality and highlighting collective and collaborative narratives of the built environment, CommUNITY honored Seattle's diverse population through a design-focused lens.
2021 - Breathe
2021 was a year of aspiration. Emerging from COVID lockdown, we were ready to take a deep breath and consider our future. Aspiration means ambition and the act of breathing in. SAF’s 24th Annual Architectural Model Exhibit theme “Breathe” was meant to inspire submissions that reflect on this dual meaning: faced with the passing of an immediate crisis, how would we pause and rethink our world? When we did exhale, what new forms did we breathe into life?
