How models change what we notice, question, and understandTiny furniture[Content warning: This article contains images of miniature death scenes.]I recently started building a miniature house in my free time. I am clumsy and have messed up a lot of things, but I still find the process therapeutic. Part of it is how cute everything looks at that scale. The world feels so orderly and manageable.However, not every dollhouse is built to make you feel safe or comforted. One example is Frances Glessner Lee’s collection of miniature death scenes. Known as the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, these models, built at a scale in which one inch represents one foot, were based on composites of real cases and created to train investigators to examine death scenes.A dollhouse full of deathNutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (source)Lee reproduced domestic spaces in obsessive detail. Her...