Face Me
2016

Digital Drawings and Asset Library


Dimensions: Various



Face Me is an open-source asset library created for the SketchUp Warehouse to integrate real people doing real things into the architectural design process. Visit and use the models in the asset library here.


A screenshot of the asset library
Face Me figures in SketchUp


SketchUp is a free architectural design software used commonly in education and by young designers and hobbyists alike. It is entry-level software supported by a global community that supplies tutorials and assets to its open-source library, the Warehouse.

Because SketchUp caters to a wider range of designers, it supplies a human figure—a “Face Me Component” for scale, dutifully standing at ease at the 0,0,0 coordinates. With every new version of the software, the figure changes, but so far has more often than not taken the form of a white male, aged 25-50, in casual Friday clothing, embedding heteronormative male politics into the fabric of every design project. These figures become the unspoken subject for spatial design, and the templated population expressed in final renderings.

The library’s diverse series of bodies represent the spectrum of bodies and activities unseen or unrepresented in spatial design. As potential Face Me Components and figures for building renderings, they challenge the values and beliefs that predominate the field. Students of architecture and practicing architects are invited to contemplate and use these open-source figures for more inclusive constructed environments.
©2025 Nancy Nowacek
Nancy Nowacek artist is a research-based artist, designer, and educator working in visual art, public art, social practice, and socially-engaged contexts.