Overall, I enjoyed my experience of building my home in SketchUp. I am not very experienced with building 3D models. Despite the initial nervousness, I found the whole process quite delightful. However, I did struggle to make sure that each floor has the same height and create identical windows. After researching on creating apartments in SketchUp by watching YouTube video, I was able to fix my floor heights and windows.

It was fairly easy to get hands-on in SketchUp. For example, the toolbar is not difficult to find. In addition, when you put your click on each tool, a small tab that briefly describes when this tool is doing will show up. It is nice to have a tab that tells you if this tool icon is “push/pull” or “offset”. You will not be confused by the tool buttons during your creation process that requires concentration and a lot of patience already.

I lived in an apartment in a populated city for most time in my life, and the apartment building has a rectangular base and a simple gambrel roof. The geometrical shape of my apartment is simple to build in SketchUp and this process is not demanding. However, I had a hard time making each floor having identical heights. I was not sure how to take measurements for my first floor–ground level and how to duplicate that height for the second floor. I found a youtube video that teaches a tutorial for apartment-building in SketchUp, which inspired me to make each floor from the same plane and then move one floor on the top of another. I also realized that “make a group” function is essential to make identical elements appeared in architectural design. After I created the first floor and the windows, I grouped them together. Then, it was easy to copy and paste the entire floor and create the base for the second floor. Later, I added more details to the floors. This would also be a piece of advice that I want to share with users who are novel to SketchUp.

After my first try-out in SketchUp, I image that scholars or researchers in humanity could use it to build architectural models that are described in literature and historical documents. For example, researchers can build the house in Jane Eyre and study behaviors of the characters in these architectural spaces. To be more specific, they can use the models to explain why Jane Eyre fails to notice Bertha Mason– the madwoman in the attic– for a long time and why the fire that Bertha set up could destroy the house easily. SketchUp could be useful in humanistic studies by adding the architectural spaces to these studies.

Videos Recommended for Building Apartments: