DESIGNER INTERVIEW | SARAH DURNEZ | Using Sketchup as an Interior Designer

Thank you, Lauren, I’ve been working in a remote design capacity for over 10 years.  Primarily focusing on consulting for interior designers, while providing them with detailed accurate renderings. Most recently, I have been providing luxury design and visualization to homeowners all on a remote basis.  

I started using SketchUp back when it was still owned by the founders of @last Software in the early 2000’s.  At that time it was a program you had to purchase on disk and install on your computer.  It was so new, my college didn’t even have a course for it yet.  

SketchUp at its core is very user intuitive with a simplistic interface that makes it very attractive for designers of all skill levels to use.  It’s approachable from a user-friendly aspect as it is from an investment aspect. This makes it a great tool for designers to work into their workflows, even if it is just for the preliminary or conceptual design of projects.  I would say some level of knowledge of SketchUp would be considered an essential skill.  SketchUp files can be integrated into so many other platforms and file types, that it has become a common denominator for a lot of other BIM softwares. 

I’m laughing right now because I’m sure we have the same one.  The SketchUp Essentials is usually my go-to.  Justin, who runs the channel is on top of all things SketchUp, among every other program.  Whenever there is a new release or feature I always check out his page to get the deets on everything.  He does a great job of going over functions as well as other possible uses for everything.

Fredo Tools is my fav.  The Thru Paint tool is a saving grace for applying materials on curved surfaces.  Correctly mapping materials is instrumental for a good rendering, and correctly conveying design intent. 

One of the most memorable pieces would be the Soleil Cocktail Table.  The form is so simple, but it did require some troubleshooting of innate SketchUp tools.  I learned a lot about creating just that one model.  

I sure do, you can find me at Sarah.D on the 3DWarehouse.  I’ve uploaded some of my models and have curated some collections of my favorite models from other contributors.

This one might get me in trouble, but if I’m working through a bug or glitch with a file and have to save it multiple times, at this point I’m usually pretty frustrated and will give it a profanity to make me feel better.  Yes, it’s petty, but at the moment it feels good lol.

At this time SketchUp isn’t the primary file type for most metaverse platforms, but for anyone willing to figure it out, it’s still a good option for getting content on a platform. I have already seen plugins to convert and export other metaverse-friendly file types.  SketchUp has been at the forefront of VR, so I would imagine it won’t be long before they have a release that will make it easier for metaverse content creators to migrate files onto various platforms.