How to model furniture in Rhino 3D

In this article, rather than going over how you can make furniture in Rhino step by step, we will be talking about how to add furniture to your model in the best way. Topics discussed include going over the types of furniture that you can reasonably add to your Rhino model if it is the case that you want to add furniture to a building.

Adding to this, we hope you read to the end where you can start to understand the importance of adding furniture to your model in Rhino with some tips on how best to add them in to add the most important context to a model without taking up too much time.

We understand the importance of focusing on only the most important aspects of modeling exercises so you don’t spend all day on parts of a project that may not even be noticed in the final presentation of a model. As an architect, it’s hard to find the right amount of time anyway so you certainly don’t want to waste it! Let’s get into the topic below.

What kind of furniture can you make in Rhino?

Below is the list of the types of everyday items you can add into a building to bring it to life. Some of these we have tutorials for on our website whereas others can be found by doing a simple google search to learn how to model or simply download the file.

Carefully decide on what ones are actually necessary for the project you’re working on. If the building you’re designing will need to be modeled to see the outside only then you may want to focus on only furniture that is visible through windows or stand out such as stairs or outdoor furniture.

Small furniture details can always be represented later on in a 2D plan. Nonetheless, it is useful to add as much as you can, especially if you plan on doing any kind of interior renders as the more furniture you’re able to accurately model, the more you can save time later on 

Tables

Tables are easy to construct and you can fairly easily construct them in Rhino. Office desks, dining tables and even coffee tables could all be great additions to the spaces you design in Rhino. To construct one, use a series of pipes and flat surfaces in order to create something basic.

What’s great about this piece of furniture is if you’re trying to create something more realistic you can add other items on top of the table too like cups, candles or potentially cutlery. All of which will add to the atmosphere created in a rendering of interior space.

Chairs

If you are adding any tables or places where people can eat such as a breakfast bar to a space, it is typical to add a chair or two alongside it. Chairs actually aren’t that hard to construct and what’s great about them is you only have to construct one in Rhino once. The rest you can copy and paste as all chairs in a building will likely appear similar.

Be sure to have a good think about the type of chair you need in the area you’re adding a chair into as there are a range of different types that add to the atmosphere and the perception of the use of the space. For example, office chairs, sofas or benches all would assume the space is used for something different and can add or take away from how you want it represented.

Stairs

While stairs aren’t a piece of furniture, we have included them on the list because they are useful to add into a model of a building in Rhino 3D for a few reasons.

• Stairs can be seen through the doors and windows of a building
• Once you add in stairs, it becomes simpler to determine where to add in the rest of the rooms
• Stairs can be implemented with other furniture (for example a bookcase under the stairs)
• Stairs are mandatory in a building with multiple floors so you may as well assign the space for the stairs early on in the design
• Stairs can come in a variety of different shapes including spiral stairs, steeper stairs or stairs with landings

All in all, if you do plan on adding stairs to a building in Rhino it is usually worth it as there is a good chance it helps you model the rest of the building

Kitchen items

Kitchen items can include white goods, the appliances you may find in a kitchen and also the worktop or breakfast bar alongside the units that store all the features of a kitchen too.

While there isn’t a specific way to model this, becoming familiar with the types of modeling techniques such as using the “box” command in order to align objects or separating the textures of different surfaces in order to make sure everything looks good are good skills to develop.

As well as this, the amount of detail you want to go into is completely up to you. One person practicing modeling in architecture could just model the units of the kitchen and nothing else whereas someone else could go into as much detail as finding a way to represent all of the appliances the kitchen has.

Can you download furniture for free online?

There are a variety of different sources online where you can download models that have been designed by someone else. Some of which you have to pay for whereas some of them you have to find out 

Where can you download furniture models from?

Architecture Genie has a range of furniture designs available for download below. With no email sign-up required.

 

Nonetheless, be sure to sign up for our email list too for additional resources just like this in the future.

Using the above resources certainly saves you time as you can simply download the items, scale them to fit the building you’d like to add them to and copy and paste as many times as you need the furniture in your design. 

Why make furniture in Rhino 3D rather than download it?

You may be wondering why it is necessary to model any furniture at all if you know you can simply download it. However, there are some good reasons for modeling these designs yourself.

For example, even if you take a model that has already been made and then you change it, you’re developing your own ability to model. Being able to create unique designs is crucial to becoming an architect that can deal with any design scenario.

For instance, if the theme of your building was using curves and the interior and exterior of the building followed this design language, you may choose to continue this design language to the furniture.

Simply copy and pasting will produce generic results and furniture that perhaps doesn’t fit the building you’re trying to produce and it is therefore vital you learn how to model yourself and produce unique designs.