Based in the Lake District National Park, Ben Cunliffe Architects design innovative, elegant, sustainable architecture. Established in 2001, the company has brought together a talented team of architects and designers who endeavour to make design and construction extremely environmentally conscious and fully aware of the carbon footprint a new build can create. They are at the forefront of creating low energy sustainable buildings which incorporate a wide range of green technologies – from solar, bio-fuel and ground source air source in their schemes to self-contained waste systems and reed bed filtration systems.

I chatted with Ed, one of the designers and technicians at Ben Cunliffe, about sustainable construction, how SketchUp staves off repetitive strain injury, and the important issue of whether he’d rather live in a house in the forest or a house by the beach.

Hi Ed! Can you introduce yourself and your team to the SketchUp community?

My name is Ed Newcome and I’m a designer and technician with Ben Cunliffe Architects. We’re a mid-sized, award-winning architectural practice based in the south Lake District. Our projects are predominantly residential or small commercial, and all are highly bespoke and individual, with project costs in the region of £200,000 to a bit over £1 million.

How did your team get going with SketchUp – and why SketchUp?

We have always used SketchUp for visualising projects in 3D to clients. We love the speed and ease with which SketchUp can bring our ideas to life, and we find it an invaluable aid to communication with clients, planners, builders, engineers, joiners and other trades. We have a large TV on the wall in the office and we frequently take clients on a tour around the project using that. Clients will often comment on the designs and we can make alterations as we go to experiment with different ideas.

What does your typical design workflow look like?

Typically, the concept designs will be outlined on tracing paper by Ben Cunliffe. We then take the designs into SketchUp to develop the design and to illustrate the ideas to the clients. Once we have agreement on a scheme, we produce planning drawings with Layout. .

How important is the sustainability aspect to Ben Cunliffe Architects? What are the challenges for environmentally conscientious design and construction?

As a practice, BCA is strongly led by environmental principles and sustainability. As a lot of the houses we work on are old, historic houses, it can be difficult to implement modern technologies and standards, but we do our best to deliver efficient, high performing and environmentally sound buildings. Most of our projects incorporate renewable technologies, and some of the new houses we’ve designed have been built using SIP panels.

What about your own dream house? City dweller, beach, forest?

Personally, I like the mountains, so I’d love the opportunity to design a spacious pad deep and high in the hills. There have been some fantastic modern chalet projects in the European alps in recent years. Being able to ski from the door in the winter would definitely be a bonus too!

What’s been the most challenging/proudest piece of work you’ve produced?

Every project has its own particular challenges as each building and site we work on is totally unique. From a SketchUp perspective, on a recent job we had all the contractors querying how a particularly awkward roof structure was going to go together, incorporating steel, oak purlins and timber rafters. It was great to be able to work this all together in 3D, which put everyone clearly in the picture!

Are there any plug-ins that you’d consider absolutely essential?

Solid inspector, 1001 bit tools, Mirror, Follow push pull – to name but a few.

Any keyboard shortcuts you couldn’t live without?

All my keyboard shortcuts are assigned over to the left hand side of the keyboard so I don’t have to move my hand around while I work. (Prolonging the onset of RSI and speeding up the workflow). I use shortcuts for every single tool as far as possible, with others mapped to the extra buttons on the mouse. (I have a 9 button mouse for modelling).

Finally, in a parallel universe, if you weren’t doing what you do for a living now, what would you choose? 

If I hadn’t got into architecture I would probably still be doing various dead-end jobs and puzzling over how to earn enough money to pursue my hobbies and sports while doing very little work at all. I’m not sure this actually exists in reality, but luckily I love what I do now so it’s a less pressing concern.

To view more of Ben Cunliffe Architect’s work head to their webite, follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Houzz.

Ben Cunliffe Architects were introduced to us via UK reseller TCS CAD & BIM Solutions. One of the main benefits of purchasing through a local reseller is to take advantage of their product expertise and training.

Over the years I have demonstrated the use of SketchUp in many industries ranging from Architectural, Interior Design, Manufacturing and Engineering. SketchUp is known as a easy-to-learn 3D modelling tool.  We often get a number of inquiries regarding how we can use SketchUp to design a store layout and provide intuitive renderings.

This has led me to create my own virtual TCS SketchUp model, I spend roughly 3-5 days creating model and used V-Ray for SketchUp for the render engine which is a SketchUp extension. V-Ray was chosen because for its usability and reputation for a professional render engine.

With little or no retail design expertise, SketchUp and V-Ray still allowed me to create quite impressive designs.

Design

Using Google images, I began with sizing to gather a rough idea for the store dimensions. The great thing with SketchUp Pro is that it has the DWG import function in which I was able to get a number of DWG examples into SketchUp and make the building size more appropriate with the examples.

I opted for a false ceiling design with illuminated lighting around the bezel with spot lighting showcasing the units around and my own funky design in the middle.

SketchUp’s 3D warehouse played a BIG part in the design development. Most of the models have been sourced through the warehouse with some exceptions such as the middle shop gondolas. From a recent visit to one of the retail stores, I saw a design in which I liked and was able to replicate and make it my own with my style.

I was fortunate enough to find all required fixtures such as slatwall, lighting, brackets, modular retail shelving and checkout counters from the 3D warehouse this saved me a lot of time modelling and with some minor tweaks I was able to make it my own. 

Rendering

V-Ray for SketchUp provides designers with faster rendering, better lighting tools, and the ability to create and visualize complex scenes.

I used the in-built materials shipped with V-Ray for SketchUp for most of the components ranging from the flooring, lighting, paint and the units.  The V-Ray interactive render engine also worked great with draft settings to see how materials looked and to see the placement is right.

The rendering element took most of my time I was wanted to try to achieve a realistic render of my model. I experimented with a lot of materials and textures in order to get highly authentic results.

Rendering times ranged from 5-hours for a full 1080p render –  but I was able to dramatically reduce this time using V-Ray Swarm. This distributed rendering platform allowed me to join all my training workstations together to reduce to rendering times to 2-hours.

Final thoughts

The design process was relatively quick. SketchUp enabled me to explore a number of concepts before settling with the chosen model..

I would suggest that you organise components that need to be grouped if you don’t need to edit them, make components if you need to make changes and setup layers to help with optioning and improve performance of SketchUp.

V-Ray provided really impressive renders and I was amazed by the render times, even with V-Ray Swarm. Together, they are a winning combination.

The next follow up post to this would be how this model would work with a real-time render engine such a Enscape for SketchUp.

“My perception of using SketchUp was to have a tool to offer clients a good quality 3D visual. What I wasn’t expecting was that the software was so intuitive and easy to use that I started to design within the 3D environment as well. This completely changed the way I work and has improved my ability as a designer exponentially.” ~ Martin Nealon

Martin Nealon, creative director and partner of Angel Martin Interiors, has worked as a top-flight interior consultant for over 30 years specialising in high-end domestic schemes. He is a registered member of the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) and works on a range of traditional and modern projects across the globe. As well as being a passionate and productive designer, Martin is also a serious SketchUp aficionado, so I was thrilled to talk with him about his approach to work.

Martin was introduced to me via UK re-seller TCS CAD & BIM Solutions who also trained him with SketchUp and V-Ray.

One of the main advantages of purchasing through a local re-seller is to take advantage of their product expertise and training.

Hi Martin, thanks for taking time out to talk to us! Could you introduce yourself and your team to the SketchUp community?

My name is Martin Nealon and I am the creative director at Angel Martin Design Consultants. As a company we specialise in high-end interior design and illustration. The team consists of myself, my partner and we have a graduate we will be taking on full-time soon.

I trained as a technical illustrator many years ago and after four years of leaning to draw cut away sections of car engines by hand and airbrush I was ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, in the final month of my course a little grey box appeared in the corner of the studio and I had never seen one of these before, it was called a Personal computer. (Yes, I’m very old!). The screen flickered on and a computer generated cutaway section of a car engine appeared and I watched as the lecturer rotated it and altered the lighting. I had no training in computers at all so immediately understood I was out of work before I even entered the job market. My career in interior design was a sideways move to use my hand drawing skills in an industry that still valued this type of drawing. As it happened it worked out well for me and I loved designing interiors for clients and soon opened my own company specialising in high-end domestic and commercial interior design.

How did your team get going with SketchUp – and why choose SketchUp?

Well, life does have a certain irony as it was not many years into this career that technology caught up with me again as AutoCAD became the main program for designers. Technology was chasing my heels again last year as more and more designers were offering client’s 3D visuals and, at the time, all my work was presented as CAD plan and elevations. Based on the success I had achieved with AutoCAD I decided to invest in 3D software and evolve. I tried lots of different software packages but found them to be very complex to work with. I eventually settled on SketchUp Pro as it was relatively simple to learn and, when combined with V-Ray, could give a very impressive 3D representation of the scheme.

My perception of using SketchUp was to have a tool to offer clients a good quality 3D visual. What I wasn’t expecting was that the software was so intuitive and easy to use that I started to design within the 3D environment as well. This completely changed the way I work and has improved my ability as a designer exponentially.

The 3D visuals are now an integral part of my design process and presentation to clients.

“I was hoping SketchUp would help me to present my designs – I wasn’t expecting it to help me with the design process.”

An unexpected benefit from producing the 3D artwork is that architects and fellow designers liked my work so much that I began to get requests from them to produce 3D’s. My experience as a designer meant I had a wealth of experience and could understand what they needed and my new-found 3D skills meant I was well placed to interpret their needs and produce artwork for them. I have now set up a new company alongside Angel Martin that specialising in producing 3D artwork for fellow professionals at www.3dinteriorillustration.co.uk

What does your typical design workflow look like?

My workflow starts with a basic CAD plan and elevations. Then I source items and reference material for the interior. The design is still a flat concept at this stage but the fun starts when I transfer the CAD drawing into the SketchUp package and start to pull the room into a 3D format.

Suddenly the room has form and I can navigate around, zoom in and start to play with the proportions and detail. Even adding colour and texture is fun, I can actually see how materials look and change each surface a the touch of a button until I’m satisfied with the overall look. From a presentation point of view I produce sketch renders of the model and then work up full renders filtered through V-Ray.

As I present to the client I start with the plan and elevation which most clients don’t fully understand and I watch their eyes glaze over as I enthuse about the detail.

I then go onto the sketch renders and I can see the client sit up in their chair as they relate to the drawings and become excited about the scheme.

The final stage is to casually flick over to the full renders which never fail to blow the client away as they see an almost photo-real concept visual.

What’s the one functionality you’re glad SketchUp has?

I love the sketch renders, I would like to see more options with these.

Are there any essential plugins that you use?

V-Ray is very much my thing!

Hard question: If you had to choose, is there any one project you’re particularly proud of?

I have done lots of fascinating projects but one that sticks in my mind as being particularly enjoyable was a simple reception desk. Most reception desks tend to be a little bit predictable with the way they are designed and I wanted this one to be unique.

As a starting point I was fascinated by a simple origami bird, the angular form and simplicity of the folds were just wonderful.

   “The design could not have been created without the 3D model, more importantly the SketchUp interface allowed me to work with the model, the process of modelling became a background function as the software is so intuitive allowing the actual design process to be at the forefront.”

I started to design this on CAD in plan and elevation but after two days of frustration came up with a very poor design. I then changed tack and started to build the desk from scratch in SketchUp, the 3D environment allowed me to literally fold panels to the desired shape. Rotate, zoom in and extrude each piece until I had a 3D model that encapsulated the concept perfectly.

After losing your right arm, you now work in SketchUp one-handed. This is incredibly inspiring and interesting. Is there anything else that is vital in helping you work?

The problem with using the mouse and keyboard in the normal way is that you sometimes need three hands to press the combination of keys required. As a one-handed designer you can imagine I was finding this very frustrating having to resort to holding a pencil in my mouth to press keys on occasion. My solution was to use a 3D mouse which made navigation much easier – then I could transfer to the keyboard as required.

My recent acquisition of the 3D Enterprise mouse means that I have access to the 3D mouse with numerous shortcut keys built-in around the side making it much easier to interact with SketchUp one-handed. SketchUp also allows me to place the various menus anywhere on the screen so by clustering them together on the bottom left, I minimise the travel on the mouse.

If you weren’t an interior designer, what profession would you have chosen? Do you have any other strong passions besides design?

Thirty years in the business and I still love designing interiors, I have never lost my passion – but if I wasn’t an interior designer I think I would have liked to be a book illustrator – I’m a bit of a sci-fi geek. I build and paint models, have done quite a few book illustrations, and I have also written a science fiction novel that was published last year.

SketchUp Rendering Solutions: Below are a number of rendering extensions available for SketchUp Pro. The ones selected have been tested with SketchUp and have been recommended by our technical team.

Introducing Enscape for SketchUp

SU Podium V2.5+

V-Ray for SketchUp V3.6

We are pleased the announce the launch of SketchUp Pro 2018, customers can start placing their orders through our ordering website: click here

What’s new in SketchUp Pro?

Smarter Sections

Named Sections

Just like components, section planes have names and symbols, making them easy to find, organise, and edit in Outliner. Now, it’s  easy to access and manage sections whenever you need to.

Filled Section Cuts

Filled Section Cuts are now baked into SketchUp Pro. Select a colour for your fills via the Styles dialogue and bake them into templates.

Fast Sections

SketchUp features improved performance for models that use section planes to hide large amounts of geometry. The more geometry you section off, the more you’ll benefit!

Make Better Drawings

Scaled Vector Drawing

Need to add linework that’s not in your model? Create a scaled drawing in LayOut and sketch over a 3D model to flesh out your project. Or draw from details to scale from scratch directly in LayOut.

DWG Import

Import a DWG into LayOut and find illustrations already scaled to paper size. Now SketchUp projects can live side by side with CAD linework and take advantage of DWG libraries everywhere. LayOut A+: plays well with others.

Drawing Better

Inferencing, chamfering and filleting, arcs, offset arrays, selections: LayOut is even better at everything you need to draw details or create beautiful illustrations at scale.

Got BIM?

Advanced Attributes

SketchUp now features Advanced Attribute fields for a component’s Price, Size, URL, Type, Status, and Owner. So now it’s even easier to embed projects with useful information.

Aggregated Reports

Generate Report now aggregates component data so you can do things like configure reports to sum parts and quantities for schedules and cutlists, or create detailed estimates by adding up prices by layer. It’s time to crunch model data!

IFC Import/Export

BIM works best when information moves freely between applications. You can rely on IFC in SketchUp to transfer the attributes you assign and manipulate in projects.