Some architects begin new projects by creating a “bubble diagram” that turns the program — the list of space requirements for a building—into a set of shapes. Mostly, these diagrams are useful for figuring out adjacencies and loose spatial relationships. They’re really about translating information in spreadsheets into something that can begin to inform decisions about space, form, structure and all the other good stuff that makes buildings worth building.
Over time, we’ve seen an awful lot of architects use SketchUp Pro as a tool for making more-accurate bubble diagrams. They create “rooms” whose areas match the ones in the program, group each one, and arrange them three-dimensionally. The results aren’t buildings, per se—I prefer to call them shoebox models. They can be very useful, but there’s a catch: once a room changes size, there’s a disconnect between the spreadsheet (which is what the client is asking for) and the nascent design.