SketchUp - Designing for Interior Spaces

LinkedIn Learning Session

'SketchUp for Interior Design' with Ed Cotey

2h 16m | Intermediate

I selected this course after reviewing my earlier visuals for my 'Design for Location' Project, they were completed in 2019 prior to my SketchUp classes with the University. I created them by hand, whilst they were acceptable visuals I decided I would like to get an idea of how to create a SketchUp Model for a specific space. I also believe this course will be excellent for teaching me how to create more realistic scenes, through the attention to details that I may have previously missed.

Due to quarantine I don't currently have a lot of options on spaces to measure and redesign so I chose my younger brothers out dated bedroom with the promise that if my parents approve the design they'll fund me constructing it to the approved visual specifications. This gave me the opportunities to treat this exercise as a real commission so I sat down with my brother and asked him how he would like his room to look. He had one condition, 'make it Sunderland football themed', classic teenage boy. I started out by marking out the measurements and placement of permanent fixtures like the wall sockets, window, door and radiator. I built the space to scale in SketchUp before I proceeded to position the permanent fixtures into the room.

I found the course helpful in demonstrating new techniques I hadn't previously known, as well as teaching me new ways to visualise a rooms composition. I also discovered the application of 'styles' a rendering method that allows you to utilise your SketchUp models in so many different ways that never even registered to me before. Not only is there a wide variety of 'styles' but there are even more stored online available for download, the 'styles' change the whole visual effect of your model but still maintain the core appearance through the shapes and compositions you create. The example the course used was of a cottage models front facade, styled to give a painterly effect the image was then exported onto a wine bottle label. The overall effect was sophisticated yet artistic, this is an aspect of SketchUp I look forward to experimenting with in the future.