Visualisation for architectural practices
Send the drawings: a fixed price, scope and delivery date come back within two business hours. No deposit for registered businesses.
The problem
What usually goes wrong — and what fixes it
Most practices produce drawings far better than the imagery that represents them. In-house renders get squeezed between deadlines and done by whoever is free, and the result quietly undersells the work — which matters most in exactly the moments that decide things: a competition board, a first client presentation, an award submission.
Imagery that argues the same case your drawings do. That usually means restraint rather than spectacle: correct light, honest materials, a camera at eye height, and no styling that distracts from the idea the building is actually about.
We work from your documentation rather than reinterpreting it, and we ask what the building is doing before we set a camera. If the whole point is a section, we will say the section is the image and suggest you spend accordingly.
Not every board or meeting needs a photoreal image: conceptual imagery suits a competition or an early workshop, and a massing study keeps a planning discussion on scale. When each style earns its place: Architectural rendering styles — photoreal, conceptual, massing and diagram, and when each one works.
In Australia · October 2026
Competitions and design review in Australia
A lot of the imagery Australian practices commission is for a process with its own rules. In the City of Sydney, certain larger developments go through a competitive design process — an architectural design competition or competing design alternatives — and the resulting scheme can be granted up to 10% additional height or floor space under the Sydney LEP 2012. Competition imagery is judged against the brief and the other entries, so it has to explain the idea, not just look finished.
Apartment buildings in NSW of three or more storeys and four or more dwellings are assessed against nine design quality principles and the Apartment Design Guide, now in Chapter 4 of the Housing SEPP, which absorbed SEPP 65 on 14 December 2023. Design review panels respond to honest context views and clear sections far better than to marketing imagery.
Sources: City of Sydney, Competitive Design Policy; NSW Planning, Better apartments
- Competition boards and submission imagery
- Client presentation sets at concept and DD
- Award-submission renders that stand in for photography
- Practice portfolio and website imagery
- Sectional and cutaway visuals
Worth saying plainly
If the image is for a DA that will be assessed on compliance, buy the cheaper tier. We will tell you that in the quote, not after the invoice.
Briefing us
What to send, when to start, and what moves the price
What to send
- Plans, elevations and sections, or the Revit, ArchiCAD or SketchUp model if it exports cleanly
- The finishes schedule, with products named where they are known
- The site plan with north point, and the survey for the neighbours
- The competition brief or board layout, if there is one — the format decides the image
- Two or three reference images for mood, light and styling
When to start
Work back from the deadline. Once the drawings are settled, a single still typically takes three to four business days and a set of five takes five to eight. Allow time for the camera approval: it is the cheapest decision to change and, inside a practice, often the slowest to agree. Tell us the board or presentation date at the start, and the quote fixes a delivery date that works back from it.
What moves the price
- How many views, and whether they share one scene — three views of one building cost far less than three separate scenes
- How much of the street is modelled from survey, rather than kept to a clean site
- Whether your model is usable — a clean export removes most of the build cost
- Design changes after the grey-box is approved, which are re-quoted
Start a project
A competition, a client presentation or an award?
Send the drawings or your model and a line on what the image has to win. You will have a fixed price, a written scope and a delivery date within two business hours.
- $0
- Deposit for registered businesses
- 2 hours
- A fixed, scoped quote within two business hours
Start a project
Get a fixed quote
A fixed price, scope and delivery date within two business hours. No deposit for registered businesses.
Received
Thank you — your enquiry is in.
We’ll come back with a fixed price, a scope and a delivery date within two business hours. If anything is missing, we’ll ask in our reply.
FAQ
Questions architects ask
Can you work from our Revit or ArchiCAD model?
Yes, and it saves you money — a usable model removes most of the build cost. We will tell you honestly whether yours is usable or whether rebuilding is faster, because a badly exported model can cost more to repair than to replace.
Will you follow our material specification exactly?
Yes. If a product is named in the schedule that is what gets rendered. Where a specification is still open we will render the most likely option and flag it, rather than quietly choosing something that photographs well.
Do you do competition work on short timelines?
Often, but we cap concurrent projects, so it depends on what is in the studio. We will give you a real answer within two business hours rather than accepting and running late.
Can you prepare imagery for a design competition in Sydney?
Yes. Competition imagery is judged against the brief and against the other entries, so we start from the brief’s required views and the board format, then make each image explain the idea rather than simply look finished. Tell us the submission date at the start and the quote works back from it.
What does a design review panel want to see?
Honest context. Panels assessing apartment buildings against the Housing SEPP design principles respond to views from where people will actually see the building, with the neighbours modelled from survey and the sun set for the real orientation, and to clear sections. Marketing styling tends to work against you in that room.
Will the same artist handle every view of our scheme?
Yes. One senior artist builds the scene from your documentation, then lights, finishes and grades every view of it, so the images on a competition board or in a client set read as one scheme rather than several interpretations. You agree each camera and the lighting on a grey box before any material goes on, which is the cheapest moment to change your mind. The neighbours are modelled from survey, cadastral and aerial data, and each finish named in your schedule is the product rendered.
We also work with
Developers
Campaign imagery that has to sell a building years before anyone can walk through it.
Luxury Builders
For builders competing on craft, with imagery that shows the detail rather than hiding it.
Interior Designers
Schemes rendered with the joinery, finishes and lighting you actually specified.
Planning Consultants
Defensible imagery for submissions, built on real survey and context data.
Commercial & Industrial
Imagery that leases warehouses, offices and hotels before they are built — accurate enough for people who read plans for a living.