October 19, 2007

Dwell Video- Michele Kaufman

Not only stating her case but the video also highlights something we got into back in the early days with our first architects. You can use Google Sketch Up to place your home in its actual site and see how it fits in. My old architects were able to pick a time of year and a time of day to see how the sunlight ran across the house to better plan the passive solar design. I haven't yet been able to figure that one out and it may only be available on the paid version. Visit Google Sketch Up.

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posted by Mrs Gottfried at 10:16 AM 0 Comments

June 26, 2007

Putting everything in perspective

In this new direction of working with the contractor, a draftsman and have an architect sign off on everything for submittal to the Building Dept. I began worrying that I wouldn't have enough of a solid picture of how things would actually look based only on floor plan and elevations. I came across Better Homes and Gardens, Home Designer Pro. It allows a 3D view of your floor plan, you can add furniture, fixtures, landscaping etc. I am also trying to tap into some CAD functions to offer even more insights. So far everything looks like I want it to look but for the sale price plus the rebate, the software was worth the investment.

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posted by Mrs Gottfried at 6:54 AM 2 Comments

June 15, 2007

A Clean Site


Moving on from nostalgia, I managed to create a clean slate on which to place our 3rd and final design. Whatever this comes out to be will be our future home. It is turning out to be a combination of all our influences so far: Tim Snyder's design, The Glidehouse, The Container House... Basically somewhere between Tim's interactive design and the simple, plain, rectangle boxes with lots of windows that are the others. We'll see how it fits into the landscape next week. Hopefully it won't be anything so bad a little landscaping can't fix. How far we've come to begin again as amateurs.

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posted by Mrs Gottfried at 11:06 AM 0 Comments

June 14, 2007

Step up to Sketch Up




As we move forward with designing our house in this 3rd attempt, I couldn't help the nostalgia pouring in for our 1st attempt with Tim Snyder at Osborn Sharp in Sarasota. I was also looking to explore the capabilities of Google's free Sketch Up download. Tim had first told me about it and how he exported our model to Google Earth to show our future home in 3D from every angle under the sun. You feel like you can control your own destiny. A feeling that has been fleeting at every turn. It allows you to "walk through" your home, look out at a water view, see bird's eye and worm's eye views from any distance. Looking back at our first design in Sketch Up is inspiring even though it won't be this house we'll live in. Even the ability to pretend to be in a house and see a house on the site still hints at all the possibility.

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posted by Mrs Gottfried at 11:33 AM 1 Comments