Trimble SketchUp allowed an Urban Planning student to create a monument with Māori’s design vision reaching out to the natural realm. 

As part of his Urban Planning Studies, University of Auckland student Simon Jo used Trimble SketchUp via the TTL to design and bring to life a Māori monument placed in its natural environment in Auckland city as part of Māori’s vision outwards to the natural world.  

Circus plan, a common European urban design scheme, converges the vision to the central civic monument, which makes a grand statement about the human capacity to conquer. Instead, Māori’s design scheme, Pa, diverges the vision outwards to the natural realm, treating it as something that should be eternally feared, revered, and borrowed. 

The tower exists not only as a singular monument but also as the nexus for the circus inhabitants and Tamaki Makaurau’s (Auckland) nature, framing the unchanged vistas of Waitemata Harbour. 

Over 300 students are enrolled in the Urban Planning degree, from the School of Architecture and Planning. They interact regularly with SketchUp technology every year. Among a suite of software tools students have access to, SketchUp is most commonly used to quickly create 3D models of students’ ideas at the start of the design process. Some will then shift their ideas to another software package (e.g., CityEngine, Revit, or ArchiCAD), but some choose to further develop their deliverables in SketchUp. 

Further information about Simon’s concept and other examples of student work are available on the School of Architecture and Planning’s Digital Archive site: https://www.soaparchive.ac.nz/2024/07/08/destranded-an-urban-model-towards-regenerating-whenua-2/