NBS library developed by INTERLACE for the SketchUp 3D Warehouse

News
5 September 2024

Developing the use of NBS in urban public spaces requires urban design practices to evolve. Planners and designers are increasingly aware of and informed about the challenges of climate change, but the use of NBS still comes up against practical barriers. Although there is now a great deal of information on NBS on specialist websites, many traditional practitioners still do not consult these specialist sources very often, particularly in Latin America. 

It is therefore important to be able to provide information to these practitioners via the channels they usually use for their activities. This is the strategy proposed by the INTERLACE project, which has enriched several sources and tools dedicated to traditional design with information relating to NBS.

One of the tools widely used for urban design is SketchUp, a design platform that enables sketches and proposals to be made in 3D. SketchUp has a library of 3D objects, called 3D Warehouse, that designers use as a basis for their designs, to avoid having to draw everything from scratch. Until now, this very popular library of 4.8 million objects had very few NBS. As part of INTERLACE, the YES Innovation team has therefore developed a series of 39 objects representing 26 types of NBS, available as self-service in the Warehouse. These can be accessed under the INTERLACE label or through keywords such as nature-based solutions. 

To find them directly, you can access the Warehouse via the following link: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/user/2e703d47-1974-467e-8d12-fbe8a6b36a63/INTERLACE-Project?hl=en