I’ve been studying architecture in Florence for the last couple of months and unfortunately haven’t had much time for work outside of class. However, we visited a Medici villa outside of Florence last weekend and I absolutely loved the dining room, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures. So I took the opportunity this weekend to sketch up a quick model from what I could remember.

I modified a few things and added some other details from other palazzos I’ve seen while in Italy, but the basic idea is still there. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t capture the table and chairs however, because they were equally beautiful. At some point I plan on expanding on the design, or including it in future dream house designs, but for now it remains just a quick sketch. Hope you enjoy it!

Medici Dining Room Design

In an effort to branch out and try new styles, I’ve adapted my dream home project into an architectural style project. Basically I’ve started a series of designs each of which will exemplify a different standard architectural style. In order to simplify the project, I’m keeping the designs dream-home oriented so that I can focus on the style. Since I’m leaving the “customer’s needs” unchanged, these designs will, as usual, feature large libraries, personal studies, exquisite dining halls, and luxury master suites.

Given the grandness of my usual designs, I’ve decided to start with one of my favorite periods of architecture, the Renaissance. In some ways it’s more of a Renaissance Revival style, but I drew inspiration from both genres in the creation of my design. A little internet browsing provided me with two primary design inspirations. The first is a fine example of Renaissance Revival architecture, Breakers Mansion in Rhode Island. The second belongs to the actual Renaissance and is located in Venice, the Scuola Grande di San Marco. I also found a nice cutaway of a Corbel-Table gutter, which I appropriated into my design.

The the design was far more involved than any work I had done previously (although my recent work on door hardware had prepared me somewhat for more involved detail work), and certain elements are still a little clunky and lacking in the elegance that true craftsmanship could achieve. I also left out the typical art pieces that usually decorate the walls of renaissance buildings, although consideration was made for these components and so the design does feature a number of elements intended to bear such pieces of art.

Pillars columns and arches come together to create this beautiful and elegant Renaissance style dream home.

Renaissance Revival Style Design

With my new door hardware, I set to work completely redesigning my doors. I actually spent some time examining a few doors this time. The new designs feature my new hardware and include fully worked molding on the door frame. On the double doors I routed the latches and deadbolts to the top of the door to allow for independent and free movement. All measurements are for the size of the hole in a wall needed for the door and thus include the frame. The actual doors themselves are therefore approximately 2″ shorter and 4″ narrower than the stated measurements. As usual, the frames are designed for 4″ interior and 6″ exterior walls.

Classic Interior Door: 2′ 10 x 7′ 2

Classic Entry Door: 3′ 4 x 7′ 8

Classic Entry Door with Decorative Window: 3′ 4 x 7′ 8

Classic Interior Double Door: 5′ 4 x 7′ 2

Classic Exterior Double Door (12 lights): 6′ 4 x 7′ 8

Classic Entry Double Door (12 lights): 6′ 4 x 7′ 8

Classic Entry Double Door: 6′ 4 x 7′ 8

Stratford Interior Door: 2′ 10 x 7′ 2

Stratford Exterior Double Door (12 lights): 6′ 4 x 7′ 8

Considering the difficulty of finding good door hardware on the Google 3D Warehouse, I decided it was high time that I create some of my own hardware. This has the added bonus of making my door designs entirely of my own creation. The following hardware were inspired by some antique plates and door handles I saw. Interior plates are spaced 1″ apart while exterior plates are spaced 2″ apart (though this can easily be modified for any door width).

Classic Interior Door Hardware: An ornate plate for interior doors with an engraved knob.

Classic Exterior Door Hardware: Similar to the interior version but with an extended plate for a deadbolt set.

Classic Entry Door Hardware: Same as the exterior hardware but with a handle on one side for a classic front door look.

Stratford Interior Door Hardware: A fine face plate featuring a gothic arch decor with a similarly decorated knob for interior doors.

Stratford Exterior Door Hardware: Similar to the interior version but with an extended plate for a deadbolt set.

Standard Door Hinge: Nothing exciting, just a simple hinge component.

I was getting a little bit bored with the dream houses, and so I’ve started working on a set of blocks that I can use in my future designs. This is a set of basic doors, each consisting of seperate components for the door and its frame to allow for easy rotation around the hinges. Obviously they do not fit all designs, and I’m still working on building up a variety of sizes and styles, but they have a little more detail than others that I’ve come across, and they can serve as a jumping off point for anyone else’s more particular needs.

Door: 2′ 6 x 6′ 8 (actual door size, allow 4″ on each side for trim, interior: 4″ walls)

Double Door: 5′ x 6′ 8 (actual door size, allow 4″ on each side for trim, interior: 4″ walls)

Exterior Door: 3′ x 7′ (actual door size, allow 6″ on each side for trim, exterior: 6″ walls)

Following my interest in architecture, I’ve spent a good deal of time playing around on sketch-up. Lacking any specific project, most of this work went into various attempts at designing my dream home.

My first project with Miles Yanick was in fact designing my dream bedroom. This was of course during my week of school directed apprenticeship in middle school. Anyway, I wanted to design a bedroom looking east so that I could wake up with the sunrise. However, I didn’t necessarily want to wake up with the sun IN my eyes, so I thought it would be cool to have a waterfall in front of the big sliding glass doors. Apparently my waterfall bedroom impressed Miles since after that week he offered me my summer job, but that’s basically how I first started working on my dream home.

Of course, my designs no longer generally include a waterfall in front of the bedroom, but certain other things have tended to pervade them. A massive library has become an essential component and I’ve even started designing most of the rest of the house around it. Of course I’ve always wanted a private library, but the ones that I’ve been drawing up more recently are largely at the request of my lovely second half, Darby. Two studies (one for myself and one for my significant other), secret passages, double hung windows, courtyards, atriums, a foyer, and a large master suite have all become intricate parts of my dream house design.

I am quite fond of a number of different styles, and would be just as happy to live in a tree as a hobbit hole as a german castle. As for my dream home designs, well they’ve taken a turn for the roman. Darby prefers Spanish and Classical architecture, but her interest in classics (along with the massive requirements for the library) inspired me to the powerful architecture of the Romans. Plus, I’m fond of Atriums and walkways lined with columns.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite designs. Keep in mind that they are done to no particular level of precision and that they are really not much more than doodles. I have tried to keep things somewhat to scale, but to be honest I don’t have a great sense of how many square feet there are in a room, and so some of my designs may have a scale a little larger than intended. As I said, consider these to be purely conceptual drawings, many of which could use additional editting.

Hilltop Villa: Probably my first sketchup endeavor of any real weight, this design began as a blocking and lacks any interior design at all. The roof, a somewhat mangled mess, portrays the difficulty of assembling a roof ex post facto upon a whimsically designed blocking. The design was primarily inspired by a cottage style family home called Topsfield and my local public library, these elements remain the most elegant components of the design (namely the ground floor windowed section on the south side and the matching rooves over the garage and library).

An Early Craftsman Style Design: An early design with a wrap-around deck and heavy wooden doors and windows. The design features a courtyard, a sunken library, second story master suite, and a separate garage structure. It is marked as one of my earliest designs by the lack of wall dimensions, a mistake I corrected in all subsequent designs.

Early Basic Floor Plan: This design focuses on the interior space and has left the exterior largely unexplored. The design features an angled foyer, courtyard, and private studies connected to the library through a secret passage way. The studies are accessed off of the library via a secret passageway and are adjacent to a private lounge opening onto a fenced off area of the yard.

Grand Staircase Design: This design features a large grand staircase leading to a couple of side rooms as well as a walkway over the private library to the master suite. I spent a little time detailing the walkway on this one in order to depict the forest-like arches rising out of the railing posts. The design also features a courtyard and a shell-like roof structure.

Fan House Design: A lovely roman style design fronted by a lovely atrium. The name derives from a fan shaped roof structure that used to expand to a full fan shape before I cut it back to fit the underlying walls. Unfortunately, since I didn’t consider overhangs from the beginning, there was no easy way to extend the roof so the design lacks the typical overhangs which I have since made a standard aspect of my designs. While the roof is a bit rough, the underlying floor plan is one of my favorites. It features a foyer connecting to two halls angling off at an obtuse angle and ending in small lounges connecting to side yards. A set of double doors also leads out onto a walkway overlooking the private library and connecting to the master suite. All in all, this design has a lot of nice features but could probably use some refinement.

Roman Villa: With atriums, colonnades, and peristyles surrounding a courtyard, this represents one of my finer roman style designs. At this point in my sketchup exploits I started to use primarily double hung windows in my designs as, after careful consideration, I decided that they were one of my favorites and they appear extensively in this design.

Hanging Gardens: This design brings together circular architecture and grass roof/underground design. The design has a nice symmetry to it and provides significantly more light and outdoor space than my previous designs. However, it’s still largely unfinished, lacking windows or a completed atrium; I’m always coming up with new designs and rushing off, leaving the previous design unfinished… although I try to restrain this impulse as much as possible. The other reason for the rough edge of some of my designs is that as one gets into more and more detail on sketchup, the time requirement explodes and the difficulty level increases exponentially. Sketchup is, after all, not really set up for detail work.