Getting Glass to Render in Indigo

A major factor that I have faced throughout this project is the fact that glass would not render in Indigo and in turn would simply be rendered as black objects. I have conducted countless tests in order to rectify this problem but I have now finally figured it out and will progress as planned from here on out.

The following are renders showing the blacked out glass prior to me changing the material settings in the SKIndigo settings bar and a few other things:

Interior render. Again the glass is blackened out and thus light is not able to enter the dwelling as designed.

Renders after I have able to get glass to render appropriately:

First Floor Plan 

Second Floor Plan

Hideaway Laundry

Every house needs a laundry, however I do not want mine to be a feature of the house. Thus I decided to make it a hideaway laundry at that far end of the kitchen bench opposite the bathroom and toilet. It is not a very big laundry but it is functional which is the main thing.

Large sliding doors that will hide the laundry when closed. These images from sketch-up don't portray it well but the glass on these sliding doors will be quite reflective so that it makes it hard to see the laundry that lies within it. When someone is using the laundry, there is enough space for one to stand comfortably between the concrete wall and the sliding door.

Image with the sliding doors removed to get a better sense of the size of the space.

Geolocating My Model

A part of this project entitles us to create both a 1:1000 site model and geolocate our model also. I decided to do both of these in a single hit. I firstly geolocated my model using the 'Add Location' function in sketch-up to get a Google map satellite image of the area in order to angle my model geographically to the parameters of the section..

The concrete base that my dwelling is sitting on signifies the 400m2 section that we have to work with. This model is to scale and fits the site of 15.5m by 25.8m:

Front elevation from Fisk Street

In order to create my 1:1000 scale model I then took a screenshot from Google Maps and placed it into Sketch-up. I wanted to make my 1:1000 model be more realistic and in doing so, allow to get a better understanding of how my dwelling would sit amongst the neighbourhood of Naenae. Therefore I have drawn the residential properties in the area and made them all a generic 1 storey buildings height. Some of the houses in the area may be 2 storey, but for all intensive purposes, I made them all 1 storey.

Public Bathroom and Shower

So the next step was creating the public bathroom and shower facilities. I wanted to make the shower and toilet separate because I know from experience - if it is shared, living with five other people, that when one person is in the shower they stop everyone else from using the toilet. Once I had that decided I placed it into my model as follows..

However once I got to this point I realised that the bathroom and toilet should not be facing the kitchen, especially when it is only a couple of feet away. Therefore I have decided to flip the bathroom and shower so that it faces the open planned living room now..

Kitchen Bench Completed

I have finally started to adding elements into my interior such as the kitchen bench to start to fill the empty space and make it feel like a dwelling rather than a hollow shell. What I have done today is complete the wooden kitchen bench that runs the length of the concrete wall. Making this bench was a lot trickier than I had anticipated due to the curvature of both the wall and thus the bench having to follow that curve. It's not perfect, but I have been able to create the bench as follows..

Later on in the project if I have time, I will add appliances etc. to make it feel more like a kitchen.

Material Study

As part of our assignment we are asked to complete a 1:1 material study of which we plan to use in our dwelling. I have been quite set on my materials from the start of this project in which I have wanted to use:

• Concrete, (preferably a white concrete - similar to white Portland cement)
• Double glazed glass
• Stained New Zealand Pinus Radiata timber for trimmings and the bench top for example
• The timber has been stained with Feast Watson's 'Rich Jarrah Satin'
• Bottom left corner - 1 coat
• Upper right corner - 2 coats 
• White ceramic tiles for the bathrooms to create a nice contrast against the wood and concrete

The following image are photographs of my 1:1 material study that I have conducted..

Trying to focus on the texture of the concrete and allowing the other materials to begin to blend in with one another. I plan for my concrete to have a slight texture (refined) without being rough like traditional concrete.

Model Structure Completed

The last couple of days I have solely been focused on completing the structure of my house and filling out the gaps from the concrete walls. I have decided to add an extra hallway for the main entrance of the dwelling. It combines the concrete that I use throughout my house to act as a screen so that people cannot see into the public areas of my dwelling from the street. However it uses glass to carry through the consistency of materials and also to allow natural light into the entrance way to create a welcoming entrance for not only the occupants, but also visitors too.

Due to the fact that I have decided to add a mezzanine into my dwelling in order to have the private spaces upstairs, I have decided to continue the idea of elegant forms within my design. I have done this through the implementation of two different glass domed windows that separate the two levels at the rear of the house. 

Front elevation

Rear elevation

Left elevation

Right elevation

Plan

Final Mezzanine

In my other post about adding a mezzanine, I concluded that I was not very happy with any of my tests and that I need to think about it more in order to create a mezzanine that is functional however is still aesthetically appeasing. Therefore I have played around on sketch-up a bit more and have come up with this design. I have added a few doors and a spiral staircase into the images in order to get a better sense of how the space will be inhibited and will function.

Nothing except the mezzanine floor in a plan view

Plan view with concrete curved walls, glass dome and spiral stair case 

Perspective 1

Perspective 2

Perspective 3

Perspective 4

Perspective 5