Business | Property
Model makers benefit from growing real estate
A stand-alone building with little detail and surrounding landscaping could cost around Dh100,000.
- By Natasha Marrian, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:53 October 10, 2008
- A model of a master development on display at Cityscape Dubai 2008.
- Image Credit: Ahmad Ramzan/Gulf News
Dubai: The Gulf's oil-fuelled property sector is driving many businesses, including the miniature model-making industry which is growing rapidly.
From flamboyant to the downright bizarre, the miniature replicas of multi-billion dollar property developments provided a spectacle of the vast imagination of architects and master developers at Cityscape Dubai 2008, which concluded on Thursday.
Whether they were ostentatious, classy, understated, elaborate or innovative, the miniature structures emerged as a major-card to various stalls for Cityscape visitors and it seems developers were all too aware of this, splashing out thousands of dirhams on creating and setting up the models ahead of the five-day real estate exhibition.
Gina Vaduva, marketing executive at Al Mousa Models, said the price of the constructions varies according to the size and amount of detail put into them.
A stand-alone building with little detail and surrounding landscaping could cost about Dh100,000. At this rate, a medium-sized company could generate at least Dh12 million in sales revenue. The number of model makers is growing.
It's a painstaking task involving meticulous and detailed planning.
Vaduva said the client, the architect or developer, provided the company with the project's "autocad drawing". This is a detailed, three-dimensional presentation of the project which provides the model-maker with the necessary technical information, in order to calculate the scale of the model and assess the amount of detail it required.
The process is arduous with regular visits to the model maker from the customer to examine and approve the model or request changes and modifications.
The entire process could take between one and three months; again, depending on the size and detail involved in the model.
"You will just run away if you knew the work and time that went into building the models," Vaduva said.
Al Mousa builds around nine models a month with between 10 and 15 people working on each one.
Most of the models are constructed from acrylic, but Cityscape 2008 featured several made of metal and crystallised glass.
The evolution of the kinds of models requested over the years has been a rapid and sometimes strange one, Vaduva said.
"In the beginning there were only requests for normal buildings, straight towers. Now, there are strange shapes and a focus on the environment, on the green side, has also increased," she said.
Ahead of Cityscape this year, some model makers were paid 150 per cent of their usual earnings due to last minute requests from developers and architects, resulting in model-makers working during the Eid week.
Vincent Pinto from Arabtec Eastern Model said the progression in the shape and structures of the models have made the industry more exciting.
The company built 19 models for this year's exhibition.
Whether the grand designs envisioned by the master-developers ever emerge on the horizon of the cities they are destined for is uncertain but the models remain a testament to the evolution and progression of the designers' imagination.
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