In the Swiss town of Einsiedeln, city planners put up poles marking the actual volume that would be occupied by a proposed building. This way all the townspeople form their judgments of how this building
would fit into the neighbourhood in situ.
See also, Christopher Alexander’s description of his method starting from the lived experience of the site, and refining concept in moving between multiple representations —sketching, modeling in clay / paper / balsa, finite element computer
modeling, drawing, punctuated throughout by mock-ups on site, in situ with successively more and more convergent materials.
A Small Example of a Living Process (the design and construction of the Upham house in Berkeley):
and the much larger project: the design and construction of the Eishin campus in Japan,
and a hospital in Oregon.