The project
Built in 2026 for Ørsted, this is a 1:40 model of an offshore wind monopile, standing around 1.2 m tall. It was made for hands-on assembly workshops held before crews go offshore, so the people who will do the work can handle the structure, take it apart and put it back together at desk scale first.
The approach
Ørsted supplied their production 3D model, which is far too complex and detailed to build from directly. The work was in simplifying it: scaling down, removing detail that would not read at 1:40, and rebuilding the geometry so it could be printed, handled and reassembled repeatedly without breaking. A workshop model is judged on whether it survives being used, so robustness drove more decisions than fidelity did.
How it was made
The model is 3D printed in PETG and finished with spray paint. The main sections are locked together with press fits and glue, and anything not meant to move is glued permanently so it stays where it belongs. The parts that are meant to come off, the external access ladder, the platform ring with its railings and davit crane, and the internal deck structure, are made to a deliberately loose fit, with inserts that drop into matching locations to hold each piece securely once placed. That distinction, between a fit meant to be permanent and a fit meant to be repeated many times, is the whole engineering of the model.
Where the same approach works
A training model has to be wrong in useful ways. Full fidelity would make it fragile and slow to handle, so detail is traded for durability wherever the trade costs nothing in understanding. The same approach suits assembly and maintenance training, safety briefings, technical onboarding, and any structure too large to demonstrate any other way.
