Model making plays a crucial part in the early stages of architecturaldesign. It captures spatial percepts and allows for three dimensionalthinking and evaluation, hence establishing a direct connection betweenthe body and the object. In the context of architectural design, modelmaking enables exploration of the formal and the spatial qualities of adesign through the contrasts in different aspects such as form, size, coloror material. The easily revisable nature of the conceptual models helpsarchitects to search for the design alternatives (Knoll and Hechinger, 2007,19). Architectural scale models are design tools that promote thinking andthe communication between the designer and the design (Smith, 2004).Models in the making, aside from serving the material undertaking ofa design idea, act as sketches just as two dimensional sketch drawingsdo. Gürsoy (2010) has recently discussed model-making as a form ofpreliminary design sketching, and the possible contribution of its inherentambiguities to the design process. Model sketches are objects in becoming,subject to the designer’s spatial perception and intellect. They arecontinually open to discoveries.Within the scope of this paper, the point of interest in model sketchesis that they contribute not only to seeing but also to touching manypossibilities within a design idea. Cognitive studies show that when thethree dimensional sense of touch and the sense of vision are used together,perception is faster than when either one is used alone. The sense of touchalone can yield to faster perception of complex forms than the visualone (Jones et al., 2005). Similarly the perception of visual informationis directly related to that of haptic information. There are cases wherevisual perception misleads haptic perception as well as cases where visualperception is weak due to the lack of haptic perception (Reiner, 2008).Haptic feedback improves the quality of discernment in the early phasesof object exploration (Moll and Sallnäs, 2009) and touching the objects provides detailed information in comparison with the macro details thenaked eye perceives (Reiner, 2008).In other literature related to design thinking, haptic senses are oftenobserved to be as crucial for creative activities as vision (Prytherchand Jerrard, 2003). Moreover, there is a direct correlation between thedevelopment of haptic senses and the experience and practice of craftingskills (Treadaway, 2009). Information that the hands supply to the brainis important for not only the perception of the environment but also theexpressive skills of the designer.In the context of digital design, haptic interaction is considered as abeneficial aspect of the multi-modal process (Schkolne, Pruett andSchröder, 2001). 3D sketches support conceptual phases of design byproviding spatial interaction with the design objects as well as enhancingthe perception of the scale and the orientation (Israel et al., 2009). Virtualreality 3D sketching improves cognitive abilities in conceptual phases ofdesign (Rahimian and Ibrahim, 2011).Early stages of a design process are where the designer experimentswith the initial concepts and the perceptual qualities of the envisioneddesign idea. In our contemporary culture of technology, the acts of designperformed in these stages are being transferred into the digital domainmore and more as design and production processes merge and gain speed.The visual and spatial integrity of design performances in earlier stageshas value for the entire design process and should be sustained in thedigital domain as well. The value of hands-on design thinking, or in otherwords the spatial and visual thinking with materials at hand, comes forthin pedagogical discussions that emphasize design reasoning in the field ofarts and design as early as the beginning of the 19th century. Consideringthe literature above, its sustainment today is crucial for the future of designthinking in the information age.The present study analyzes a limited sampling of different handmovements performed while working on a physical sketch model. Severalactions and the movements that are used while performing these actionsare identified and classified. The aim is to create an abstract repertoire ofmodel making hand movements for the purpose of digitizing them. Thisconstitutes a first step towards carrying that knowledge and experience todigitized conceptual stages of architectural design processes.