Tag Archives: sketchup

This architectural design joins two A-frame cabins together by a glass sky bridge!

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The Gisoom Cabin is a 3D architectural visualization from designer Soheil Kiani that features two A-frame cabins joined together by a glass sky bridge.

3D visualizer Soheil Kiani is known for his moody, maximalist architectural renderings. His latest 3D design, a lakehouse formed by two symmetrical A-frame cabins that are connected by a glass sky bridge, is envisioned in the foothills of Gisoom forest near the city of Talesh, Iran. Conveniently located near the forest’s beginnings and Gisoom Beach, Kiani’s 3D rendering is designed to immerse guests and residents in the beauty of the natural forest and all that it has to offer.

Defined by north and south-facing facades that are formed entirely from glass, Kiani’s Gisoom Cabin was visualized so that these facades collect the most amount of natural sunlight and are oriented for the best views of the surrounding forest. The glass facades are also complete with an expansive set of eaves that offer some protection on days when the sunlight might be too bright. Following the eaves to the shingled facades, dark brick comprises Kiani’s sloping roofs to bring out a direct contrast to the light wood that makes up the cabin’s eaves and interior spaces.

When conceptualizing his lakehouse, Kiani looked to thermowood, concrete wood textures, and glass to make up the bulk of the cabin’s prospective building material. In order to highlight these building materials and to bring out the wood’s warmer profile for the 3D visualization, Kiani injected his renderings with a soft lighting scheme. This lighting scheme also emphasizes the cabin’s main structural elements, concrete, and steel, two building materials known for sturdiness and durability amidst wild landscapes and unpredictable weather.

Designer: Soheil Kiani

Soheil Kiani used SketchUp, Lumion, and Adobe Lightroom for his 3D renderings.

The building comprises 206m2.

The main materials used in these cabins are thermowood, concrete wood texture, and glass.

The post This architectural design joins two A-frame cabins together by a glass sky bridge! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This modern eco-home features a garden roof and integrates the surrounding forest into its design!

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Hugging House is a modern eco-home architecture concept that features a garden roof and incorporates the natural landscape of the land into its layout.

Noticing the devasting changes that come with climate change, most modern architects look to the natural world for inspiration to help preserve it. Whether that means building a self-sustainable home using a ‘passive house’ construction method or incorporating biophilia into the design scheme, architects interpret earth’s many ecosystems in exciting and different ways.

Cuba-based Veliz Arquitecto conceptualized a modern eco home called Hugging House that integrates the land’s rolling terrain and surrounding trees into the layout of the building.

Hugging House is a large, bi-level, cantilevered home located somewhere with dense forestry and overhead treetop canopies. The two sections that comprise Hugging House merge together as if in an embrace. Concrete slabs comprise the home’s surrounding driveway that leads to the ground level and outdoor leisure areas.

Veliz Arquitecto’s Hugging House is still only in its conceptual phase, but if brought to life, Hugging House’s location would be fully incorporated into the layout of the home. Describing the design in his own words, Veliz Arquitectos notes, “We have taken advantage of the slopes of the land in order to create visual connections at different heights with the existing vegetation and beyond the landscape, as well as [used] the premises with which we always try to characterize the project.”

Choosing to merge the outdoor areas with the home’s entire layout led to some exciting design choices including a garden roof and abstract overall frame. The Hugging House’s garden roof is located in a terrace-like enclosure where residents can lay out and feel as close to nature as if they were sitting on the ground below.

In addition to the garden roof, Hugging House features a swimming pool, fire pit, and concrete driveway. On the inside, residents and guests can enjoy a living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and laundry room.

Designer: Veliz Arquitecto

The inside also features garden walls and ceilings to further the home’s biophilic design principle. 

Upstairs, natural stone walls give the bedroom a sultry, cozy appeal.

The dining area and bar room feature bright and dark design elements respectively. 

A floating staircase brings guests from the living room to the second floor. 

This glass fishbowl-like home has us re-thinking about how we connect with nature

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Now that we’ve been inside our homes for over a year now living in a fishbowl doesn’t sound all that bad. However, while many architects are turning to semi-outdoor designs to develop public facilities like restaurants and storefronts, the upcoming trend for homes in this new era finds their indoor spaces merging with the outdoors to get some natural airflow a good breeze. Architecture studio Veliz Arquitectos conceptualized what it might look like to turn a fishbowl into a modern house, turning an entire glass globe into a two-story home.

Envisioned somewhere in a snowy grassland, the Fishbowl House mimics the shape of a crystal ball, propped up on three sturdy wooden pillars that connect to the home’s exterior with a steel fastener. If ever constructed, the Fishbowl House would be entirely made from glass, merging the exterior with the interior. Inside, plants fill the scene, harmonizing with the natural world outside. Constructed from wood, the flooring and semi-outdoor deck helps to warm up the glass facade and make the cabin feel much closer to the natural world. Otherwise, guests can start up a fire in the home’s integrated fireplace for a cozy night of stargazing. For the days and nights, you’d like a little bit more privacy, curtains that seem to be constructed from wood descend from the home’s ceiling to cover the whole of Fishbowl House’s interior.

Veliz Arquitectos conceptualized the Fishbowl House to evoke a sense of safety for those living inside. Lifted above the ground, the Fishbowl House’s entrance is inaccessible without help from a stair or ladder extension. Yet, when the home’s curtains are drawn, the home gives off a den-like quality, oozing with warmth and comfort. Inspired to create a refuge in response to the constricted living situations brought on by the pandemic, Veliz Arquitectos notes, “The Glass Fishbowl protects us apparently, but it can be very fragile, inside it is the safest place and our best memories from the outside wrap us.”

While the design stands out from the crowd for sure, it may be taking things too far. Ironic, isn’t it that we are finally placing ourselves into glass bowls as we did to our pets so long ago. Sure, the world is all about new experiences, and love it or hate it, there is no way you will ignore a house like this. While it is pretty to look at, given the nature of glass, there is almost zero possibility we’ll ever get to see this in real. ANd for sure never ina typhoon zone!

Designer: Veliz Arquitectos

Curtains descend from the Fishbowl House’s ceiling to bring some privacy to an otherwise transparent glasshouse.

Propped up on wooden pillars, three metal fasteners join the pillars to the house’s exterior facade.

Totally transparent from every angle, the Fishbowl House features a warm lighting fixture for when the sunlight doesn’t pour in through the glass facade.

The home comprises two levels, the bottom houses the living area while the top floor keeps the home’s bedroom.

Positioned against the night sky, the Fishbowl House provides the perfect viewing spot for stargazing.

Filled to its brim with plant life, the Fishbowl House merges the outdoors with the indoors from the inside, out.

These bamboo villas curve into lotus flowers creating a Disney-worthy villa!

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Known for creating 3D visualizations of architectural residences that shake up the thrillseeker in each of us, graphic designer Thilina Liyanage has conceptualized a subdued bamboo retreat for when the adventurer grows tired. Taking inspiration from lotus flowers and magical realism, Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa rises above the ground on bamboo pillars to form a raised, single-story home resembling the look of a giant rattan table with an intricate, interwoven bamboo lotus mounted on top.

From an exterior perspective, the Hideout Lotus finds a common outdoor area just below its mounted single-level lotus-inspired living area. Four curved bamboo pillars stack atop one another to create borders around the common area, creating a tiered walking space that contains the villa’s canopied deck. Wooden panels line the deck, complimenting the rest of the bamboo structure, where globular concrete mounds harness the villa’s main support beams.

Three wide bamboo shafts elevate Hideout Lotus’s upper deck, which supports the villa’s main interior living area. In a congruent style with the ground deck, the upper deck fashions wooden panels for its flooring, which merge with the villa’s more intricate bamboo lacework. Like a lotus flower floating in a pond, the main villa casually rests on the upper deck, with its bottom petals artfully draped over the edge. The villa’s windows are stationed behind an overlaid bamboo lattice that enwraps the entire villa, giving it an alluring, if not elusive personality.

Symbolic for rebirth and groundedness, the lotus is lauded for its ability to bloom beautifully despite murky waters. Positioned in a dense, wooded area, Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa bursts from the ground below in bamboo roots and chutes to grow into a hideaway that creates space for recharging and getting away from the thrill of it all.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

The villa’s ground-level deck contains an outdoor common area complete with petal ceiling fans and rattan furniture.

Forming a cluster of villas, each one of Liyanage’s Hideout Lotus Bamboo Villa is connected to one another by strings of lights.

Reminiscent of cloaked fairy tale bungalows, the bamboo lattice that envelops each villa only enhances their enigmatic personalities.

Draped over the upper deck’s edge, the curved bottom petals of each villa are some of the finer details in Liyanage’s tribute to the lotus flower.

Supported by groups of concrete-fortified bamboo support beams, each lotus villa rests on a stabilized, secure foundation.

These wildlife-inspired futuristic cabins suspend off the cliffs like StarWars jets ready for takeoff!

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Thilina Liyanage is a Sri Lankan 3D visualizer who conceptualized architectural fortresses that resemble wildlife, including villas that bend over mountainsides or a yacht club whose roof flexes into the curve of a manta ray’s backside. Developed to be constructed entirely from sustainable building material like bamboo and responsibly harvested wooden chutes, some of Thilina Liyanage’s 3D visualizations take a different approach. For example, one of his recent designs finds futuristic glass and metallic cabins inspired by the shape of dolphins puncturing a cliffside overlooking the ocean.

Similar to his Cliff Cabin 3D visualization, Liyanage’s Futuristic Ocean Cabins are lodged into a tropical mountainside, piercing the cliff to suspend in midair with a cantilever structure. Resembling the shape of a dolphin’s body, the Futuristic Ocean Cabins doubly mimic the rugged science fiction aesthetic of Star Wars, stationed on the cliffside like resistance X-Wing fighter jets ready for battle. Liyanage envisioned each structure bored into the cliffside with angled steel beams wrapped in concrete and yanked tight on their horizontal planes with four high-tensile suspension cables to create enough support for each cabin’s foundation. Accessible from an adjacent steel staircase, the interiors of Liyanage’s Futuristic Ocean Cabins come complete with enough space for a bathroom, sleeping area, kitchen, as well as a small living area.

Coated with glass facades reinforced with a concrete framework, Liyanage envisioned a future getaway that hinges on a transparent, exposed external structure and linear, open-air internal space. Jutting out from their cliffside foundation with the same tension of Star Wars III, the true thrill of Liyanage’s Futuristic Ocean Cabins rests in their support methods (four high-tensile suspension cables and one main support beam bored into the cliffside) to keep its cantilever structure horizontal over the bustling ocean below.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

The wildlife of the mountainside merges with the futuristic structure of Futuristic Ocean Cabins to create a rugged, sci-fi escapist hideaway.

Bored into the mountainside, Thilina Liyanage’s Futuristic Ocean Cabins remain suspended over the sea.

The cabin’s glass facade framed with concrete give it a rugged look fit for the set of Star Wars.

Inside, the linear layout of each cabin allows space for a living and sleeping area, as well as a kitchen and bathroom.





In addition to the cabins’ beam foundation support, four high-tensile suspension cables sling the cabins horizontally over the ocean.

A vertical steel staircase grants access to each cabin’s interior space.

The cabin’s cantilever design gives it the thrilling edge that Thilina Liyanage is quickly becoming known for.

Equipped with all the amenities and utilities that one might need, the thrill of living above the ocean is balanced with human comforts like AC and septic tanks.

This cliffside cabin is supported by five suspension cables for a daunting jungle retreat!

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3D visualizer and architectural designer Thilina Liyanage conceptualizes remote, escapist hideouts and villas stationed in rugged rainforests and off the sides of jungle cliffs. Most of Liyanage’s designs stand out for their intricate interweaving of natural materials like what appears to be bamboo and wooden beams to create life-size models of wildlife and other forms of nature. His most recent architectural conceptualization takes a new approach and envisions a cabin perched above steep cliff sides, one that is entirely made from glazed glass facades and metal cladding.

Liyanage’s Cliff Cabin, as he calls it, suspends from the side of a mountain, hovering in midair. In his 3D conceptualization, Liyanage visualizes Cliff Cabin locked in place above four support beams that are bored into the cliffside to create a secure enough foundation for Cliff Cabin to rest atop. In addition to its bottom support, four high-tensile cables are attached to the cabin’s roof and balance the cabin by drawing it back away from the cliff’s edge, evenly distributing the weight of the cabin. Globular spheres lock the cables in place and add an elegant and tidy touch to the cabin as a whole.

Cliff Cabin takes on a primarily triangular shape, with right triangle glass facades sharpening the cabin’s sides and protruding out to their center of convergence. Cliff Cabin is more modern in design compared to Liyanage’s previous architectural visualizations, lending room for the exterior to mainly consist of metal cladding and glass windows. Inside, however, Liyanage’s Cliff Cabin seems to be entirely made up of natural wood elements, creating a cozy ambiance in contrast to the durable and daunting exterior. The cabin’s natural wood accents and metal overhead awnings seem to merge on the cabin’s deck, where a metal roof protects the cabin’s guests from bad weather and wooden panels line the floor below.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

Suspended above a mountainside with support from high-tensile cables and steel beams, Cliff Cabin is as eye-catching as it is daunting.

Clif Cabin perches from the cliffside like a life-size bird’s nest.

Taking on a triangular shape, Cliff Cabin is more modern by design with glass window skylights and metal roof cladding.

Cliff Cabin’s weight is evenly distributed across the four metal beams that work as the structure’s foundation as well as the four high-tensile suspension cables.

While the exterior of Cliff Cabin is entirely constructed from glass and metal, the cabin’s interior finds warmth in natural wood elements.

Google sells SketchUp to Trimble Navigation for undisclosed sum

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Google sells SketchUp to Trimble Navigation for undisclosed sum

While we're probably more accustomed to Google buying assets than selling them 'round here, every now and again the search giant does shed some skin. El Goog's 3D modeling platform, SketchUp, is to be sold to Trimble Navigation for an undisclosed sum reports Reuters. Trimble says it's hoping to use the acquisition to enhance its office-to-field platform. The two firms will also work together to develop SketchUp's online repository of 3D models for designers to use, share and contribute to. SketchUp's blog reassures users that the free version won't change under the move. The deal should get the final nod in Q2 this year.

Google sells SketchUp to Trimble Navigation for undisclosed sum originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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