SketchUp visits the AIAS Forum

The American Institute of Architecture Students welcomed the new year in Denver, Colorado for its annual AIAS FORUM. The event brought together over 600 students from various Architecture and Design programs in the US as well as representatives from chapters in Australia, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The AIAS FORUM offered students an opportunity to learn about both the experiences of professional architects and issues surrounding architecture education, while interacting with today's best architects and designers and meeting other students to exchange ideas.

Having attended the AIAS Forum in Boston a few years back, this year's event brought back lots of good memories. I remember the Expo from that Forum, and there was a certain excitement about finding the opportunities and tools needed to get us a real bona-fide spot in the architecture world. Lunch was pretty good, too.

Like in Boston, the Architecture College and Career Expo this year gave students and teachers an opportunity to grab some lunch and wander through an exhibition of colleges, architectural firms, building materials suppliers, and computer software tools. At our demo table, we answered lots of great questions, talked about the new features in SketchUp 7, and handed out some much appreciated souvenir Chapstick to the students who skied the day before.

It was great to meet the many students who had previous experience with SketchUp! Lots of them use SketchUp in their studio classes and arrived with specific how-to questions about tools, techniques, and plugins. Other students preparing to start SketchUp classes watched live demos of SketchUp and Google Earth. SketchUp has become a staple for architecture students, whether they are making massing models, detailed designs, analyzing energy performance, or designing t-shirts.


We also hosted a workshop called Mastering 3D Using SketchUp: Geomodeling Training. Attendees were taught the fundamentals of SketchUp and learned how to optimize models and geo-reference them in Google Earth. The room was filled to capacity, so there was certainly no shortage of interested and enthusiastic students. We had fun finding solutions to their personal SketchUp questions and sent them on their way with as many SketchUp tips as possible!

Posted by Catherine Moats, 3D Data Specialist, and Josh Reilly, SketchUp Trainer