Pedro Sousa
This year has seen more of us than ever reaching out and connecting virtually. At Elmtec, the home of SketchUp in the UK and Ireland, we asked our SketchUp community to dream up their ideal home office in the spirit of keeping us all connecting and creative in the most challenging of times. There were a raft of incredible entries, but were particularly impressed by Pedro Sousa’s winning concept. We caught up with him to delve a little deeper into his design process.
Hi Pedro! Can you introduce yourself to the SketchUp UK community?
How does SketchUp help with your design process?
What’s the one functionality you’re glad SketchUp has?
Simplicity.
The functionality I’m glad SketchUp has is the very software itself! Everyone can easily start to learn 3D just using SketchUp, the basic tools from sketch line by line gives you the freedom to design anything, and by the time you are mastering the program, you can come away with such a great result on your projects, with the same quality as any other architectural software. Another feature that helps me a lot with my design is the ease of ability to link with other software. This improves my projects even further.
What kind of projects interest or excite you the most?
Water mill, based in Chelmsford, Essex. Project to develop a conversion of the building for a new use. (University project).
Are there any essential extensions you use with SketchUp that help with your workflow?
I do use some plugins which help speed up the workflow of the projects, and also the quality of them. For example, Skin_Bubble, V-Ray, RoundCorner, Lumion LiveSync, and a few others. I believe plugins are absolutely essential for any project. In contemporary architecture the demand for creating something unique, functional, and sustainable is paramount – it’s imperative to employ productivity and functionality via these plugins.
Swimming Pool Centre, Initial concept on SketchUp. University project.
