04
Year 2, Sept 2025
3D interior
Living Room
A room built to show what makes me want to work.
When
Year 2, Sept 2025
What
3D interior
Tools
Blender
My part
The room: its layout, ceiling, shelves, sofa and the idea behind it. For the 2026 re-render, the textures, plant, lounge chair and ornaments are free CC0 assets from Poly Haven. The paintings are placeholders.
The brief was to bring out a seed, something that motivates me. Mine is comfortable spaces. I built this living room in Blender to show what that actually means: warm wood, warm light, and a glow coming off the ceiling edge.
Why I made it
The brief asked me to bring out a seed, the thing that motivates me. Mine is comfortable spaces. When a room is warm I work better, I work faster and I come up with more. It makes me want to lock in.
A room was the most direct way to answer. If warmth was the point, I should be able to model it, light it and look at it, instead of writing a paragraph about how I like cosy places.
Re-rendered, 2026.
Linen and velvet at real-world scale.
The shelves, styled and lit from above.
First render, 2025.
First render, 2025.
First render, 2025.
The point was to find out what actually motivates me, and to admit that it only has to be true for me.
It won't be the same for everyone. When I design for other people, I try not to assume they like what I like. This room is where I first had to say that out loud.
How it moved
The brief
Find your seed. What actually motivates you?
The answer
Comfortable spaces. Warm temperature as a theme: warm wood, warm light.
The room
A sofa, shelves, a lamp and a glow from the ceiling edge, chosen piece by piece in Blender.
What it started
After this, every time a brief left room to explore, I ended up making a space.
The work
Learning
Comfortable spaces help me make better work, faster. Building the room showed me how much of that comes from warmth. What motivates me turned out to be specific, and I could describe it by building it.
Design
I chose, piece by piece, what a motivating room needs: the sofa, the shelves, the lamp, the glow. It also changed how I see design. A designer’s own taste goes into everything, so you have to know what yours is, or you’ll assume everyone else likes the same.
Coming back to it
My first renders had stretched wood, an almost black floor and a plant made of blocks. I went back to the model with scanned materials at their real size, warm practical lights, dusk outside the windows, a level camera and lens effects like bloom and slight chromatic aberration. It’s the same room. It finally looks the way it felt to me.
Experience
The room is warm and enclosed. For me it makes me want to sit down and work. I’ve only seen it as stills, so I don’t know how it feels to anyone else, or what it’s like to walk through it.
What others showed me
Honestly, no one else has really weighed in on this one yet. I want to ask classmates and faculty what they feel in the room and where they like to work. If their rooms are different from mine, that's useful, because it shows me my taste is one view and not the rule.
Strongest at
Mood and composition.
Still growing
Doing the material and lighting pass by hand. I'd call myself intermediate in Blender.
Next
Show it to people and ask how they feel in it, and where they like to work.