Digitally Rescuing a Madrid Icon 🏛️
The Madrid City Council has approved an investment to rescue and rehabilitate the Palacio de la Duquesa de Sueca, famous for being one of the locations in the series Ministry of Time. This project aims to transform the emblematic building into a home for vulnerable families, combining the preservation of historical heritage with social urbanism. In the digital realm, SketchUp presents itself as the ideal tool for modeling the palace and its surroundings, allowing visualization of the rehabilitation and space redistribution before real construction begins.
Modeling the Historical Structure in SketchUp
The process begins by importing reference plans or drawing the palace's main facade directly using line and arc tools. SketchUp's Push/Pull function allows quick extrusion of three-dimensional volumes from flat shapes, reconstructing towers, cornices, and characteristic ornamental elements of Madrid's historical architecture. For complex details like balustrades or arched windows, dynamic components are used that maintain the original proportions and style. 🏰
Interior Distribution for Social Use
Once the exterior structure is defined, interior zones are planned respecting the historical geometry while adapting to the new social use. SketchUp allows:
- Dividing spaces into family homes with interior walls
- Locating common rooms and meeting areas in covered courtyards
- Incorporating accessibility elements such as ramps and elevators
- Testing different layouts to optimize flows and functionality
This phase ensures that the design is not only aesthetically faithful but also practical for its future residents.
Digitally rehabilitating is honoring history while writing a new social chapter.
Urban Integration and Surroundings
To contextualize the project, the palace's immediate surroundings are modeled: adjacent streets, squares, and green areas. Adding urban elements like benches, streetlights, trees, and sidewalks allows evaluation of how the rehabilitated building integrates into the neighborhood and contributes to improving the area's habitability. SketchUp's dynamic shadows tool helps study solar incidence in courtyards and facades, crucial for ensuring thermal and luminous comfort.
Narrative Details and Visualization
Enriching the scene with narrative details reinforces the project's social purpose:
- Urban furniture that suggests community life
- Gardens and play areas in interior courtyards
- Informational signs that explain the palace's history
- Interior views that show the housing distribution
These elements transform the technical model into a compelling visual narrative about social transformation.
Project Export and Presentation
SketchUp allows generating virtual tours, construction sections, and basic renders to communicate the project to stakeholders and citizens. Visual styles like hand-drawn lines or technical shading facilitate understanding of the intervention without losing its historical character. Exporting to formats compatible with other software ensures the model can be used in later executive design phases.
While the City Council plans a home for families who really need it, we make sure that SketchUp's lines don't come apart at extreme zoom. At least in our digital model, the palace will never fall into abandonment again... although the software sometimes does crash. 😅