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BIG BUCKS IN A SMALL WORLD

By Aimee Larrabee |

When architects for the firm of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassa-baum Inc., designed the Gal-leria, they had a clear image of what the structure would look like when it was completed. After looking at the architects’ complex renderings, the developers and contractors had no trouble imagining the finished project. But the real trick was to get the vision of the Galleria into the minds of Dallasites months before the actual structure loomed over Dallas Parkway. But how?

They called David H. Gibson, master of architectural models -those tiny three-dimensional representations of buildings that appear to be so intricately assembled that it seems as if the creator would go bonkers in the process.

Gibson isn’t bonkers. He’s a savvy businessman who has turned his background in theatrical lighting and set design into a very lucrative, very unusual business. After obtaining his master’s degree in theatrical design from Trinity University, Gibson worked on set design for the Dallas Theater Center before starting the David H. Gibson Co. in 1976.

Gibson began with a one-man office that specialized in trade-show exhibits (modular components that display information about a company) and architectural models.

Today, the company has 80 employees-design specialists, carpenters, painters and photographers-and the facilities to create a variety of projects in-house from start to finish. Several members of Gibson’s staff were trained at the country’s first model-making school in Minnesota.

Architectural models cost a developer anywhere between $20,000 and $200,000. The more expensive models are built for precision rather than presentation; their dimensions are exact, the glass is tinted to duplicate the shade used in the real structure, and the building materials are authentic. Each structure represents 2,000 to 8,000 hours of work.

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