Industry standard: render in 3D software, present to client, fabricate from drawings. Three steps. Fast. Wrong proportion of cost-to-validation.
A 3D render lies. The body can't feel it. The eye accepts proportions on a screen that fail in person. Six-figure builds get committed to before anyone has stood inside the volume.
BXBX adds a step before the prototype: the mockup. A cheap, physical, body-scale stand-in built from the cheapest dimensional lumber Home Depot sells. $72. One Saturday. The volume gets validated before the engineering happens.
The BXBX mockup method is a fixed six-step process for taking a catalogue idea from dimensional reference to finished, validated build. The first five steps cost roughly $80 and one Saturday. Step six is where engineering effort starts.
The studio currently has three mockups in different stages of the six-step process. Each demonstrates one aspect of the method.
The full v0 mockup costs $72 CAD in materials. Two hours of labor to assemble. Solo build, no specialty tools beyond a Kreg pocket-hole jig ($45 one-time).
By comparison: a single 3D render that the body can't actually feel costs $200-500 in time. A first-pass engineering drawing set costs $2,000-5,000. A bad first prototype costs $10,000+.
The mockup costs less than 1% of the prototype. It saves >50% of prototype rebuilds. The ROI on the method is absurd.
Use the method when: the design has a body-scale envelope (a room, a vehicle interior, a structure with internal occupation). The mockup catches proportion errors the drawing can't.
Skip the method when: the design is small enough to fit on the desk in real form. A coffee mug doesn't need a mockup. A 56-inch-wide dwelling does.
The method extends. For a 7×14 trailer interior (BXBX-001), build the v0 mockup of the interior alone — the trailer comes later. For a backyard sauna (AT-04 Ma), build the v0 mockup of just the bench layout. Mockup what the body interacts with.