How to improve architectural visualizations: Basic principles

I sincerely apologize for neglecting my blog for such a long time. As I outlined a month or two back in a post about Instagram, I created an account there and I was kept busy by it ever since. It took a while, but now I have some consistency there and a number of pretty nice pictures. Because, as we all know, a picture tells a thousand words.  There is also one more project I am working on it, and you will be the first one to know about, as soon as I will be ready to put it out for the world to see.

But let’s cut this mumbling and focus on what is on our plate today.

Architectural visualizations.

I always admired different kinds of architectural graphics, however, I always was and still am pretty terrible at drawing, both hand-sketching and digital. But hey, I am learning. It is slow and painful, but I love it.  I hand-sketch every day and my friend holds me accountable for it. We send a sketch to each other every day and compliment it.

And this semester, we focused on the outline proposal in a major way. In my team, this semester, I have 3 true architecture students and they are all amazing at visualizations and they have great taste. Thus I learn a lot from them. And some of these basic tips will be reflected here.

For this post, I revisited an old project from 2nd-semester Vertzone House. And I tried to improve what I did back in the days.So we are starting fresh with super simplified section. Solid and void composition.

The first step is to add a ground. Nothing spectacular here. The point is, architecture is always tied to its place. It needs to be anchored firmly to its site, architecture without site is barely an idea.

And then we need to populate our design. People often think we are adding silhouettes to our drawings to make our design seem used, enjoyed and lived in. This is only a secondary purpose, though. The most important reason is to add scale to the drawing. Sometimes, sizes of a building can be deceptive, however, once we start seeing and experiencing the world as little children, our brain becomes hard-wired to the size of people around us. And by comparing our building to the size of silhouettes, we can understand the dimensions and proportions of design much more clearly.

Greenery is another important aspect, that can make a difference for your presentation. Trees, shrubs and other foliage are lively and it makes your drawing more real. But, please, never add trees just to make your drawing nicer. The trees should really be there. If they are in the drawing, they should reflect the reality. Either existing trees, or trees that will be planted. And there are many different ways how you can represent trees. Simple, realistic, grey, colourful. The choice is yours. They do not have to be realistic, drawing only represents the reality. The tree is a placeholder for real thing that will grow on site.

And finishing touches. You can always add a bit of this or that. It does not really matter what. It can be the sky, it can be a water feature, it can be smoke from a chimney, skydiver on the horizon, mountains in the background, buildings around. Your pick, I am only guiding you. You will be the one making decisions. Find out what fits and what you want to show.

If we sum it up we have these guides:

1. Anchor your building
2. Silhouettes show the scale
3. Trees make your drawing alive
4. Finishing touches show your attention to detail

And now, you are ready to create your own! And if you feel comfortable with it, you can show me by posting on Instagram and tagging me, @constructingarchitect

Cheers!