Bronze model of the Querétaro city

Designed and developped in Fablab Puebla

Technology - machines & tools Design Craftsmanship

The project is the artistical building of a 26 square meters/10cm high model of the Querétaro historical city center in Bronze. Upon a request of the famous artist Pablo Lopez Artasanchez, who is not new to experiences of this kind, the Fablab Puebla team, leaded by the actual Fabmanager Luis Alberto Camacho, had from March to August 2018 to digitally model the great Spanish colonial architecture of this city and build all the mold pieces using the CNC Router. Then the artist will express his talent and his expertise to do the city center sculpture using 3 tons of Bronze with the lost wax technique.

Social networks

Technologies used

CNC milling Casting & moulding

Machines & tools used

Shopbot cnc milling machine
  • What’s the project story?

The idea of this project emerged in December 2017 during one of the two annual meeting of the association of the Mexican cities considered as world heritage cities by the UNESCO. The meeting held in Campeche, the city for which I did a model in 2012. By seeing this model, a representative of Querétaro told the Mayor that it would be a great idea for the city. Thus, I have been contacted to reproduce the city center of this beautiful city. I usually do project with a team to help me on the several stages of the process. For the one of Campeche, I asked a headhunter to find 10 people that could help me on the design and modeling part. Among them was Luis, the actual Fabmanager of the FabLab Puebla. At that time he was finishing its Design studies and was already attracted by the potential of digital fabrication. That is why we introduced 3D laser cutting in the process of the Campeche model and I asked him again his help for the Querétaro model. The great thing is that since 2012 digital fabrication techniques got more mature.

  • How the lab was useful for your project?

The lab was very useful as it helped the project to be done faster than with usual process by introducing CNC router to build the molds of the city center. 6 months to do such a model is usually impossible! Also the close proximity with the IBERO university and the motivation of its students about the project make the recruitment of an effective 15 people team very fast. The team helped for the 3D model of the city, based on real picture and google map, the use of the machine and finishing touch of the mold.

  • What’s the project’s greatest success so far?

The greatest successes are undoubtedly the possibility to introduce CNC router in the process - such thing has not been done before - the team coordination to achieve the work on time and the ability to learn and adapt the process despite the short deadlines.

  • What’s your greatest failure(s)& lesson(s) so far? 

The several molds had to be redone because the precision was not adapted to the fundery process. It was difficult to have details while keeping proportions. So we had to inflate some part of the design. It will be interesting to document the process by taking photos and writing comments to do better for the next similar projects.

  • What’s your vision for the project & next steps?

Make more iconic building projects of the 10 mexican cities of the « Ciudades Patrimonio » association.

  • How can anyone interested can contribute to the project?

I would be very pleased to be in contact with anyone that has experimented lost wax technique with the help of digital fabrication tools other than CNC router.

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