This is one of the most useful things an architecture student will find on their supply list. You can turn any surface into a design workstation just by throwing one of these on top. They are designed for cutting your materials on so the table top doesn't get destroyed, but they're useful for more than that. We've cut, glued, sanded, polished, and much more on one of these and they help keep the mess in one place. When you're finished, you can pick brush them off, wipe them down, and they'll be almost good as new. For Architecture Students, these are where all your scale models will be made.
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This one is made of a self-healing material, which means the cut mark slowly goes away after you slice it. It's also double-sided, so if one side gets messed up, flip it over and you've got a brand-new mat.
We recommend this one by Alvin. We personally used this one for 6 years in a rigorous Architecture Master's program and never had to replace it. It's high quality and the self-healing claim is legit. Alvin has all their cutting mat sizes available at the link we've included below. We recommend going with the 18"x 24" cutting mat for Architecture School. It's big enough to handle almost every size scale model you'll have to make, while not being so big that it's guaranteed to fit on your desk and will be easy to move.
It can be nice to have an additional smaller mat for quick and small models, and for that, we recommend the 8.5"x12". Wait until you've seen the workspace your school is going to give you before you buy a mat any bigger than our recommended 18"x 24".
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Take a look around our website for more about the best Architecture Student Materials!