Show your Urban Design ideas in pictures

[dgreco]

^ ilike the bulding. i also enjoy the little guy walking around. nice scale ?

[TBurban]

Very cool design!!

Here's one of mine...just a few low-rises with ground floor retail, a few stories of apartments, and a rooftop garden.

[dgreco]

^tburban you do some great stuff in sketchup

[citiboi27610]

TBurban, that's really nice. Do you think you could make mine look more real?

[TBurban]

TBurban, that's really nice. Do you think you could make mine look more real?

[tamias6]

Here's a bit old school Saturday Morning Cartoon architecture for a change.

I had some fun doing a sketchup file of the Super Friends' Hall of Justice.

[dtown]

Lol, someone has a lot of free time on there hands!

J/K, thats cool.

[dgreco]

tam, thats awesome thanks for posting that.

[Ronald]

That's nice, tamias!

[richyb83]

Nice work yall, I really like it.

The Super Friends Hall of Justice can almost pass for a basketball arena.

Ronald has a creative mind!

TUrban, you just keep getting better and better! I like the detailed bricks.

I like the tall building in a V formation citiboi.

*Sorry I am just getting to this thread. Keep up the great work!!!

[tamias6]

Here's my idea of a new look for Barn and Noble Booker Seller chain. My purpose was to design a standardized store front that would work equally well in both urban and suburban settings. In a suburban, setting as seen here, the store is a single story structure with 20 foot high ceilings that allows itself to be attached to a strip mall on one or both sides. The building can also be made stand alone by adding paintwork to the side walls as well as extending the parapet all the way around the building.

But the flexibility of this design shines when adapting the design to an urban setting. In a simple urban situation one could merely build the suburban design close to the street and allow the architecture to enhance any surrounding urban fabric. Also in scenarios where the store must be inserted between two existing buildings Again the suburban design would work by adapting it as one would for use in a strip mall. But in tight spaces, the vertical design elements of this design allows the building to be stretched vertically from the standard 20' to 32' to produce a two story store half as deep the the suburban design.

[dgreco]

thats pretty cool, how do you guys texture the renderings so well? I have a hard time doing texture on the renderings.

[tamias6]

One thing to remember about texturing is that Sketchup makes it very tempting to go willy-nilly and apply textures to every last surface of one's model. This can often result in a finished project that looks very amateurish to put it mildly. Also going nuts with gobs of textures will tax system performance esp. if one's project is very complex with a lot of surfaces. Keeping these in mind, I apply textures to my models only where needed such as a glass curtain wall of a skyscraper, a drop ceiling, or areas that call for stone paving. I will also concentrate textures onto surfaces I want to highlight as well. With the rest of the model I will stick to various colors and even the default white in some instances. But before I start applying textures and colors I will concentrate on getting the model as good looking as possible and to read well with out colors and textures. Once the model itself looks good, one will not need to go willy-nilly with so many textures in the first place. In short, when working with Sketchup, the model is the food and textures are the seasoning.

thats pretty cool, how do you guys texture the renderings so well? I have a hard time doing texture on the renderings.

[TBurban]

I love the bookstore design. That glass atrium in the middle would be a neat feature, inside and out, not to mention the outdoor seating.

Here's a modified Virginia Performing Arts Center. This building was originally planned as our PAC, and after years of going without funds, has gotten put off. I have taken the original design, and added many of my own unique features. Here's the semi-finished product...

[Ronald]

^I like the neo-classical design. What's the purpose of the round dish on top of the building? It looks like it's a pillar rising out from the PAC.

Here's my lastest urban design, it is my vision for the city of Hengelo (eastern Netherlands) for the year 2030. The students I work with judged it to be too ambitious, for example, building a complete lightrail network around the city is unrealistic if the city only has 80,000 inhabitants. My thoughts were that a lightrail network would bring new opportunities for densifying the existing neighbourhoods (think Transit Oriented Development).

I also used some of TBurban's designs, I hope you don't mind. I told my fellow students I got the pictures from this website. I wanted to use them as an example of what housing should look like in the newer, to-be-constructed areas.

The city is surrounded by protected green zones. Densifying the existing neighbourhoods, and adding a small number of new, denser neighbourhoods adjacent to the existing city is the only way to grow.

[TBurban]

Oh, now that's just awesome! I've got no problem with you using the pictures in the project

The 'pillar' coming out of the roof would add vibrancy and give the building a lift. It was also contained in the original plans.

[dtown]

A sketch i made of a simple small urban arena. Its big enough for hockey and can hold around 4,000 people.

[tamias6]

I really like your design dtown as it looks very inviting. Try lining the street frontages of the first floor with specialty shops, eateries, outdoor cafes, and what not as such things would really make your arena enhance any surrounding urban landscape and bring in a ton of street life.

A sketch i made of a simple small urban arena. Its big enough for hockey and can hold around 4,000 people.

[dtown]

Thanks Tamias. I thought about that, but the lot i was making it for was too small to hold 4000 people and still have all that. (This was my vision for an area, bound by an alley, with a parking lot and a couple of little 1 story buildings in Traverse City)

EDIT:, heres the site.

[tamias6]

I've been through Traverse City a couple of times. Its a great town. Your Arena would fit in nicely now that I see where its going.

Thanks Tamias. I thought about that, but the lot i was making it for was too small to hold 4000 people and still have all that. (This was my vision for an area, bound by an alley, with a parking lot and a couple of little 1 story buildings in Traverse City)

EDIT:, heres the site.

[dtown]

Thanks. I might add some things to that sketch though, its rather simple.

[dgreco]

One thing to remember about texturing is that Sketchup makes it very tempting to go willy-nilly and apply textures to every last surface of one's model. This can often result in a finished project that looks very amateurish to put it mildly. Also going nuts with gobs of textures will tax system performance esp. if one's project is very complex with a lot of surfaces. Keeping these in mind, I apply textures to my models only where needed such as a glass curtain wall of a skyscraper, a drop ceiling, or areas that call for stone paving. I will also concentrate textures onto surfaces I want to highlight as well. With the rest of the model I will stick to various colors and even the default white in some instances. But before I start applying textures and colors I will concentrate on getting the model as good looking as possible and to read well with out colors and textures. Once the model itself looks good, one will not need to go willy-nilly with so many textures in the first place. In short, when working with Sketchup, the model is the food and textures are the seasoning.

[Ronald]

Here's a more detailed design for the southeastern section of the city.

One week ago, my fellow students and I cycled around through the city. We noticed that the southeastern section was very impoverished.

In our vision for the city, this area would be demolished and then reconstructed. This is necessary, because not only is the housing stock in poor condition, there are many social problems in the area aswell. Here are some pictures of what the neighbourhood looks like right now:

By creating a mixture of social housing and appartments and detached housing for the higher income groups, we want to make sure all kids of people live together in this neighbourhood. So instead of a poor area, inhabited mostly by lower income groups, we think it would be better to create an area that fits the housing needs of each income group. Also, because there is a World Trade Center planned for Hengelo, we created an additional office park to the northwest of this neighbourhood. The WTC will probably attract new companies to the city.

My design for the area:

[tamias6]

^Looks good, Ronald. The effects of city planning, good or bad, has on how citizens behave is simply mind blowing.

Here's A Sketchup file of a 10 unit apartment/ condo development of my design that integrates the front facade of the building pictured in the quote. It is located On Wealthy Street in the Uptown District of Grand Rapids, MI. Retail is along the front with 2 units in the back on the first floor while 8 more units are on 2 more floors added above. The penthouse contains the building's mechanical core, stairwells and elevator shafts, lofts for the 3rd floor back units and access to 2 shared roof top gardens. Lastly to one side of the building is a small pocket park while tucked away on the opposite side is a small parking lot with car port to accommodate up to 12 vehicles for tenants and shop owners.

So Before....

[tamias6]

Here is a link to a some shots of a Sketchup file depicting my idea of new building incorporating the ruins of a former bicycle factory in my home town that burned to the ground a couple of weeks ago.

My post on the Bicycle Factory Thread in the Gand Rapids, MI UP Forums