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This home echoes the first two centuries of American architecture with its formal, symetric facade. The hipped dormers and exposed rafter ends clearly say Craftsman. The wide, eight-over-eight windows seem appropriate in a home of this size. The pile of dirt in front looks like a garden waiting to happen. Remind your tutor to retake this shot in the spring. Formal Craftsman home, NY, c. 1910. |
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Chapter 9—Putting It Together |
Ctrl+N. Try Draw/Freehand (no shortcut). Drag around the screen making silly lines. Someone once said, "Drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a rock." I couldn't agree more.
The classic American window is the "double-hung" window. Four window "sashes" with glass forming the moving parts of two windows are shown to the left.
The sashes' vertical pieces are "stiles"; the horizontal pieces are "rails".
These windows are "one-over-one" double-hung windows. This was the most common Craftsman window. Craftsman designers took advantage of then recent advances in glass manufacturing that made large, flat sheets of glass possible.
On the left are "six-over-six" double-hung windows. The small pieces of wood that divide the window into "lights" are called "muntins".
The six-over-six window was a solution to the problem of making a large window when only small lights were available.
The casement window (hinged, not sliding) goes back at least to medieval Europe. They were not common in Craftsman architecture, although they might have been. Stickley's home at Craftsman Farm was in the Tudor style. Tudor architecture itself revived medieval architecture, so there is a direct link.
Modern casement windows may be vertically hinged, at the sides. They open outward by a crank mechanism that holds them in place, regardless of wind.
Our front and back windows will be top-hinged casement windows, good for ventilation and light. The back windows will also provide views. These are modest windows. The side windows, on the other hand, are not so modest.
Ctrl+N. File/Save As... "window_front.skp".
Begin the frame with a block of wood ten inches thick (for eight-inch exterior walls), 50 inches long (a 42-inch opening plus 4 inches on each side for "casings") and 26 inches tall (an 18-inch opening, plus 4-inch casings).
Tape a guide an inch from the edge. Rectange 8,3. Pushpull away the excess wood.
Do not stop your Pushpull in the middle unless you're trying to take an explanatory screen shot. Pushpull all the way to the far side.
Continue around three more sides. Your first Pushpull provides an exact starting point for your second 8,3 Rectangle. (No more guides needed.)
When you are done, Orbit until you are back in the customary position: solid blue axis up, solid green up and left, solid red up and right.
Guides four inches down from the top and four inches in from the left give you a starting intersection. Rectangle from the intersection, 42, 18. Pushpull out the unwanted wood and you have a complete frame.
Delete the guides, select all, group and name the group "frame" (Entity Info) to finish the frame.
Next, create a solid block for the window sash. This is 42 inches long, eighteen inches high and one inch thick.
Mine is down the red axis, to the right of the frame.
Two more guides an inch from top and left locate the top-left corner of your Rectangle 40,16. Another Pushpull and you have a window sash.
Time to call the glazier.
To get a face, redraw the window opening. Bucket to the Materials window. Translucent choices. Translucent_Glass_Gray works well for me. It's dark enough so that the glass is visible; light enough to see through.
With the glass installed in the sash, select all and group as "sash".
Time to install the sash in the frame. First, let's open the window.
Zoom in. Get the Qrotate tool. Place it in the middle of the left end of the sash, so you get the red axis orientation. Hold the Shift key to keep this orientation. Click the top front corner as shown. Click a point farther down the edge.
Open the window!
Mine is opened 45 degrees.
Move the sash, grabbing it by the same point your Qrotate protractor was located. This will snap nicely into the corner of the frame.
Save. You have achieved front window!
You have achieved back window!
Remember that you do not need to group the completed component. When you File/Import... it into your model, it will be made into a component named "window_back" (the file name). In turn, the window_back component will contain a frame group and a sash group.
Open "outside_wall_front.skp".
Tape a guide 56 inches up from the bottom. Tape a guide 27 inches toward the center from the left gable side wall. Tape another 35 inches toward the center from the right gable side wall. These intersections locate the outside corners of the window frames.
Tape out guides 3 inches above and inside the first three. These intersections locate the holes to cut in the walls.
Rectangle 44, 20 up and in from the second set of guides, twice. Pushpull out the openings.
From the warehouse ("components") requisition a "window_front." Drop it in front of the wall.
Move/Copy one window to under an opening. Move the other under the other opening.
My left window resolutely refused to snap to the intersection. If you have this problem, don't fight it. Just finish your first move close to the final destination. Then Zoom in as close as you can before you try another Move. The next Move should have no trouble snapping window to intersection.
Here we're looking good and getting ready to save.
Final steps: delete guides and move everything into the "outside_wall_front" layer. Save.
Open "outside_wall_back.skp".
Lay out guides per the following instructions.
Again we'll start with the guides that lay out the intersections where you position your window frames. These are 54 above the bottom, 12 inches from the left and then three more, each 80 inches right of the previous..
Lay out opening guides 3 inches above and 3 inches to the right of the vertical guides.
How do you know where to put these guides if you don't have a tutor around to tell you? All the window layout in a style that has no rules (many styles have strict rules) is up to the designer.
You have an idea for what would look good; you lay it out. You discover that there's a wall where you want a window. You move windows and walls around until everything works together. This is the fun and challenge of designing. It's also hard work.
Rectange each 44,20. Pushpull the openings.
Requisition a "window_back" from the warehouse. Drop it in front of the wall.
Move/Copy it 80 inches, 3x.
Zoom and Move until your windows are installed.
Lose the guides. Admire your work. Orbit some.
You are going to put all the geometry into the "outside_wall_back" layer, aren't you? Save.
It's past time for a test fitting. Ctrl+N. Don't save. File/Import... (snapping to origin) "apt_floor", "apartment_inside_walls", "apartment_built_ins", "outside_wall_front" and "outside_wall_back".
Zoom and Orbit until you're convinced everything fits. (Or until you find that there are issues. Open the culprit. Fix the issues. Repeat from the paragraph above.)
I've added some of these windows to "ground_floor.skp". It makes the garage seem lighter and drier.
There is a side issue: these will be expensive. Is this the best use of your, or your client's, budget? Frank Lloyd Wright always broke the client's budget. We're still following tradition, but not necessarily the best tradition. A pair of 24 by 48 one-over-one double-hungs would be almost as good, and a whole lot cheaper.
Ctrl+N. In "components" File/Save As... "left_window.skp".
Create a block of solid cherry 54 inches tall and wide, 10 inches deep. Pushpull away 8,3 Rectangles around all four sides. Pushpull away a 48 inch square Rectangle to create the opening for the sashes. Group it and name the group "frame".
You could redraw the opening rectangle to get a face; Bucket it with Translucent_Glass_Gray and you'd have a window, ready to install. Or you could copy mine or you could resolve to do one that's better than mine. Your choice. Here's mine:
Qrotate your "window_left.skp" 180 degrees and File/Save As... "window_right.skp".
Open "outside_wall_left.skp". Tape guides 18 inches up from the bottom, 30 inches from the back for the left window; 34 inches up and 55 inches from the front for the right window. Rectangle a 50 inch square up and in from each intersection. Pushpull the window openings.
Tape new guides 3 inches below and 3 inches outside the existing guides.
Import a "window_left.skp". Use the same Move/Zoom/Move/Zoom process you used in front and back to install two windows in the left wall.
Save. Repeat for "outside_wall_right.skp" starting with these guides: 29 inches up for both, 65 inches from the back wall and 61 inches from the front wall.
I Lined from Center Point to Center Point on these braces. That means they are at 45 degree angles. The roof is not 45 degrees. For a model, this doesn't matter. If you build, be sure that your carpenters use the real roof angles.
Attach braces to "outside_wall_left.skp" and "outside_wall_right.skp". If you use Structural Insulated Panel construction, these braces will be key to supporting your roof overhangs. I also think they look great.
The rest of this section gives the modeler some ideas.
First, there are lots of "How to make a gabled dormer" tutorials on the web. I have yet to find a decent one. By "decent" I mean one that recognizes that neither walls nor roofs are simple faces. Both are three-dimensional solids. In fact, most gable cookbooks aren't even very intelligent about the simple case, where we'll start.
Begin with the simple house you met in Chapter 1. Delete the roof face that will meet the gabled dormer. Rectangle a floor for the upstairs. Line, using Midpoint inferences, around a wall in the middle of the upstairs.
Outline a gable on the center wall.
Pushpull out more gabled dormer than you really need.
Line over one of the roof plane edges to restore the roof face.
Select the roof face, right-click and choose Intersect/Intersect with Model. (There are two other Intersect options that may appear, depending on what you are doing. I've never used either one.)
Geometry that looks like it intersects (roof and gable, in this case) does not automatically get edges at the intersections. The Intersect with Model order creates those edges (and any faces they bound).
Pushpull the dormer to its intended size.
If your gabled dormer will be viewed from inside, there's some cleanup left to do.
That's the basic technique. Extending it to real roofs and walls isn't much harder.
Draw a section of roof and a section of dormer.
This one's easier if you Pushpull the dormer first.
Pushpull the main roof across the dormer.
From the front, Select the roof and Intersect with Model. Pushpull the dormer to final size.
From the rear, hide the two rear roof faces. Select the inner front face and Intersect with Model. Then take a look at the needed cleanup.
Begin by deleting the outer layer of dormer in the interior. Then delete the excess inner dormer.
Last, the gable-outlining edges define faces inside the dormer. Delete them.
If you have a model, such as your model carriage house, where the dormer wall is already complete, use this technique for just the dormer roof.
Another solution is to group roof and dormer separately. I poke my dormer into the roof an inch. No more sparkles.
I say this so that when your chauffeur drives your Rolls into your carriage house, and goes crashing through the improperly-specified garage floor into the basement, I do not want to hear from you.
I do, however, know how to model a floor in SketchUp. Ctrl+N and File/Save As... "ground_floor_floor.skp" in "components".
Rectangle, 28'4, 25'4. (Don't Pushpull yet.) Tape guides 8 and 44 inches from the left wall; 80 inches from the front and 87.5 inches from the back. Rectangle the stairwell. Select the stairwell face and Delete it.
Bucket gray. (The top surface of any garage floor will be non-flammable, probably concrete.) Pushpull up twelve inches.
Delete guides and save. Open "basement.skp". File/Import... "component/ground_floor_floor.skp". It snaps to the top corner of the basement walls, a foot below the origin. Move everything into the "basement" layer. Save. It should look like this:
Finally, there is a temporary floor in "ground_floor.skp". Delete it.
Ctrl+N. File/Save As... "apartment_outside_walls.skp".
Turn the Layers window on and watch it as you import each of the four outside walls to the origin. Save.
Ctrl+N. File/Save As... "apartment.skp".
Import "apartment_floor.skp" to the origin. Import the rest of the "apartment_x.skp" (where "x" is "inside_walls", "built_ins", "furniture" and "outside_walls") to the corner of the floor above the origin. Save.
Ctrl+N. File/Save As... "carriage_house.skp".
Import "basement.skp" to the origin. Turn the "basement" layer's Visible off. (The rest of the components import to the origin. You don't want it hidden.)
(Drummer: rapid crescendo!)
Import "ground_floor.skp", "apartment.skp" and "roof.skp".
(Drummer: 10-second finale—give it all you've got!)
Save!
Orbit. Admire your work. You have really sketched something up. Patting of self on back is encouraged.
Since you've made something worth showing off, the next chapter is devoted to just that: showing it off.
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