Client: Scotch Whisky Experience
Year: 2019
Scale: 1:22.5
A large, interactive model for display at the Scotch Whisky Experience, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. This museum attracts a quarter of a million visitors a year who wish to learn about whisky, yet there is no distillery there. This model was commissioned by Bright 3D to bring visitors one step closer to the distillery experience.
The model shows each of the crucial six stages of distilling with lights beneath each of the relevant piece of equipment. These are operated by push buttons, and automatically fade back to ambient after 5 seconds.
Each of the distinctive pieces of equipment was modelled by hand, following extensive research into the most widespread and traditional methods of distilling. The buildings and interior layout was designed by Finch & Fouracre with assistance from Bright 3D, based on traditional Scottish distilleries. Details down to the appearance of the distillery workers was hand-crafted, to brief.
Accuracy of appearance, pipework, finish, and process was extremely important to the museum, and liaising throughout, providing photos and samples were essential to the model making process.
This project was taken from design, to build, to installation by Finch & Fouracre, the kind of Exhibition model making we love. Another model, the Distillery Box, was a project undertaken in 2014/15, shows the distilling process in a more abstract, diagrammatic way.