[Greenbuilding] Google SketchUp and SB Houses

[Chris Green]

I downloaded the free Google SketchUp 3D modeling program a while ago 
and tonight watched some of the tutorial videos that can also be 
downloaded. One of them mentioned that Google has a 3D warehouse where 
you can upload your designs or download ones other people have placed 
there.
There are files showing cities, famous buildings, various neighbourhood 
houses, farm buildings, animals, and other files for the things you 
would populate your house with: stairs, furniture, fridges,  280 
different Marvin windows, grand pianos, people (  including a lot of 
Star Trek characters ), Klingon warships, and  so-on.

On a whim, I did a search in the 3D warehouse for "straw bale" and was 
surprised to find there are a currently two entries.
One of them is a design by a young person for his or her high school 
architecture class.

( How come they didn't teach architecture in high school when I went? I 
would have spent less time skipping class to hang out at the pool 
hall.... :-) )

The student's identity is ChrisRay. I am going to assume this is a young 
man because of the other files he's uploaded, three of which have 
something to do with skateboarding. As far as I know, not very many 
young women are into 'boarding.

One of his 'landscape' models includes an earthsheltered house, as well. .

ChrisRay's design for a green house with straw bale walls, has some 
interesting features: the house is based on joined circles of different 
diameters, and the kitchen has an interesting arc-shaped work center, 
complete with a Jenn-Aire type countertop stove.

There is also a river running near the house, and in that river there is 
some unidentifiable device at the bottom. Either something to generate 
power or to 'borrow' water from the river to provide heating and cooling.

The roof has a curved second roof (?) which might function as a wind 
scoop as well as providing shade on part of the ( flat) rooftop. Or it 
might just be  there for looks.

Interesting, but nothing that hasn't been seen before, somewhere.

The truly novel feature of this house, though, is that the entire roof 
is also a skateboard park.

Yuppers, a skatepark roof.

That's perhaps a bit less safe than I'd want in a real house, but it is 
imaginative and if I ran an architectural design firm, I think I'd be 
offering ChrisRay an internship. If one can contact him.

What this all shows is that the SketchUp program shows some real promise 
for design exercises, and the concept of straw bale houses is reaching 
far and wide.

You don't need to download SketchUp to view the image at this link, but 
having the program will allow you to move around the file and look at 
the features here.

"Green Architecture Straw Bale House w/ skatepark roof."
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=2a57126efdc6ab256e4360f0b126fc97

or TinyURL link:
*http://tinyurl.com/ygqpjh
*
To see his other models, click on his name on the above page.

Cheers,

Chris Green. *
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