Architects Have Great Tools! - Interior Design Study

Architects do have some great tools, and here is one more example of how they can use them.

The interior great room images below of this particular cottage house plan were created using a 3d modeling tool called Google Sketchup. I used the tool to carve out the basic design inside and out, but I wanted to study variations of the design in order to present to my client.

Here is the Great Room space. Simple with white walls and vaulted ceiling - nice and clean!

Added a white washed wood ceiling and a little color on the walls.

Added a beam treatment to the ceiling and went back to the monochrome color scheme.

Added white washed wood ceiling between the beams.

Wood beams, white washed wood ceiling and a little color on the walls.

This example illustrates how just changing a few elements within a design can dramatically alter the character of a space. And Sketchup is a great tool for visualizing that space.

Interior Design with Sketchup

Simply Elegant Home Designs is now using Google Sketchup to better describe the interior design elements of their house plans.  

Ron Brenner of Simply Elegant had this to say.  "Better visualization of the product results in more thorough understanding of design intent and better translation by the builders.  We have been using 3d visualization for some time to illustrate building exteriors, and have discovered how valuable that visualization is.  It seems a logical next step to illustrate the interior design elements of a home with 3d.  Nowadays Architects have so many good tools to work with, and so why not use them?  The idea is to use the tools available to us to create a better product and a better service.  I think that some day we may not be issuing 2d plans, sections and elevations, but we will be issuing 3d virtual models.  And some day builders may have a television monitor at the job site in lieu of a plan desk."

The animation below illustrates the interior cabinetry and millwork elements of "The Stillwater", a house plan offered by Simply Elegant Home Designs.

Its the Energy Stupid!

I ran across this criticism of Architects and the green movement the other day.  http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-007-prioritizing-green2014it-s-the-energy-stupid/?full_view=1

It was written by Joseph Lstiburek; a renowned building science expert and royal smart ass.  Many Architects and Engineers do not like Mr. Lstiburek because of his criticisms.  I think mostly because he is all too often right; and he always has facts to back his claims up.

Lstiburek's basic criticism is this.  Architects and Engineers are creating "Green Monuments".  Buildings that are hailed Green and win awards; and yet they statistically are not saving any energy over their non-green counterparts.

I tend to agree with many of his criticisms.  I have felt for some time that we get caught up in all the new exciting technology - so much so that we forget the basic principles of good environmental design that the Ancients knew, and that Edward Mazria re-taught us over 30 years ago.  This is why I try to focus on the basics - see http://simplyeleganthomedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/top-10-green-things-to-do-when-building.html

I think our industry should be open to criticisms like his.  If we really want to do good, then we should verify that we really are doing good; and just not convincing ourselves of it.

Green Links

I just wanted to pass on an FYI that I have now posted links for various green resources along the sidebar of the Simply Elegant Home Designs Blog.  Over the next weeks I will be refining the listings.  Since there are so many green resources available to us I want to try to edit the list down to provide useful "common sense green" information, and to eliminate as much redundancy as possible.  I will also be adding a links page to my Simply Elegant Home Designs website.

Again, you can see the links along the right sidebar of the Simply Elegant Home Designs blog.  And by the way, I welcome your suggestions.

View your home in Google Earth

Simply Elegant Home Designs is offering a new service to help potential plan purchasers visualize their house plan within the context of their own site.  For a nominal fee they can provide images of the desired house plan at their site address.  The images below provide an example of how this can work.  They depict various google earth views which increasingly zoom in on a specific site address in which a 3d house plan model has been inserted.

This service can be particularly helpful for a potential plan purchaser because it allows them to get an idea of how the house plan might fit into their own unique site location prior to purchasing the full plan set.  Also, because google earth provides 3d terrain, it can also help to understand grading issues or identify special foundation conditions that might be required.  

Simply Elegant Home Designs offers pre-designed home plans that are creative, simple, elegant, unique and green to individuals, builders and developers.  Their goal is to provide the most discriminating home designs available and to be the most service oriented organization in the pre-designed house plans business.  They can be reached at www.simplyeleganthomedesigns.com or 612-669-6411.

Architects Have Great Tools!

Architects have many great tools that they can work with.  And under skilled hands they can be a great benefit to their clients.  One such tool is a software program called Google Sketchup.  Sketchup is a 3d modeling program that is surprisingly easy to use.  The images you see below are of a house designed by Larson Brenner Architects in Stillwater, Minnesota.  The images represent a series of color studies that were performed with Sketchup.  The basic design had already been completed and we were now at the stage of finalizing materials and colors for the roofing, walls, windows.  The top image is pretty much where we ended up and the images below represent the various intermittent studies.

Pretty cool huh?  It is a great way to visualize your end product.  For more sketchup examples you can see the plans at 

Simply Elegant Home Designs

Bayport Bungalow Animation

Another new animation has been added to the Simply Elegant Home Designs website and to You Tube.  You can get more information on the "Bayport Bungalow" as seen below by following the link.