Bivouac for Models is a pairing of model-scale and full-scale architectures. Taking its title from the “bivouac”—the French term for a makeshift structure made of branches, leaves, and ferns often fashioned by soldiers taking shelter from the elements overnight during prolonged battles—the building acts as a shelter for a small-scale model of a similar Jon Lott / Para Project design. Positioned on the side of the path and tucked into a wooded section of Art Omi’s grounds, the building's placement mirrors the bivouac, a temporary structure just over the tree line from a cleared section of forest.
This intentional pairing of architectures of different sizes in Bivouac for Models highlights the scalar shifts which occur between different stages of the design process. By housing a model of an as-yet unrealized building, Bivouac for Models acts as a space where new modes of discourse and object making are sheltered from the corrosive forces of time and history to which they would otherwise be lost. Each work is a model that holds further models within itself: a model for models.