Google SketchUp, modeling Jon's house, and the Fortune Creating Buildings office environment

A little over a week into my internship, and my main project is slowly but steadily coming along. I am in the process of learning how to use Google SketchUp—a simple and forgiving 3D modeling program. While learning the basics, I am using it to modify an existing, outdated model of Jon's soon-to-be home quite extensively.

From SketchUp's website:

"SketchUp users are architects, designers, builders, makers and engineers. They are the people who shape the physical world. They are important, and they deserve great tools because great tools produce great work.

Great tools are ones you look forward to using. They do one thing (or maybe two) really, really well. They let you do what you want without having to figure out how. They help with hard or boring tasks so that you can focus on being creative, or productive, or both. And they are, in their own way, beautiful.

At SketchUp, we do our best to make great tools for drawing. For our users, drawing is thinking. They draw to explore ideas, to figure things out, to show other people what they mean. They draw because they love it, and because nothing great was ever built that didn't start with a great drawing."

While I had thought I would begin using AutoCAD during this internship, I'm realizing quickly that learning SketchUp first is a much more practical and valuable tool, as it will allow me to more readily create and play with my own larger architectural ideas in the coming year before enrolling in graduate school and getting into the technical nitty-gritty.

What is pictured above is what Jon referred to as an ABCBA structure, where the outer-most wings are A sections, the inner-wings are B sections, and the main center portion of the building is the C section. Made sense. What Jon proposed that was to be changed (which you might be able to deduce from an examination of the construction site pictures from the previous post) was to convert this into an ABA structure by first lengthening the existing A sections to encompass the old B sections, and then widening what was the old C section to become the new B section.

The tricky part of this modification at first was that this model was created using feet as its primary base of measurement. However, the final modifications suggested by Jon were in meters... Luckily he had a nifty calculator that converted between the two.

I'll have some more updates on how the modification goes in the coming weeks.

I wanted also to outline and showcase the environment in which I'm working. Jon's office is located in Fairfield Business Park, which is an exemplary and beautiful manifestation of the power of Vāstu. Jon also has two assistants: Ron, who handles any technical and office-related tasks; and Susan, who interfaces most often with prospective clients, as well as maintaining and overseeing most of the financials—although all three work quite interactively together on many of the tasks that come to Jon's desk. It was fun to be thrown into the mix as a fourth, tagging along and offering my perspective when it was useful.

Fairfield Business Park from the parking lot

Hallway leading to Jon's office

A model of a proposed tower Maharishi
wanted built around the world

Jon's old drafting table being
used as a computer desk :)

Jon's many degrees and accomplishments

A picture with Jon and Eike Hartmann, Minister of
Architecture for Maharishi's Global Country of World Peace

Susan's domain next door; also where Jon meets
with prospective clients to go over drawings and such

A Pattern Langauge, by Christopher Alexander in its own special place.
Quite a funny anecdote: A friend of mine suggested that I borrow this
exact book and ask Jon about whether he had heard of Alexander;
Jon's reaction to my innocent question was priceless :D