One of the most important design tools in architectural design right now would be three dimensional design, renderings, or anything in the 3D realm that helps clients and designers produce better, clearer designs. Architects in Michigan are using all different sorts of design software to let them design in the three-dimensional realm and at our office at Sedgewick + Ferweda Architects, we use a couple of different design software to provide the best visuals for our clients. 3D design software is very important, not only to the designers to help us make the best choices and immerse ourselves in the space virtually, but it’s very important for clients because it helps them understand the space more than a floor plan or an elevation could.

Many clients and people, in general, understand how to read a floor plan, but sometimes it’s harder to understand the spaces and what they would look like in real life and that’s where 3D design comes in. There are so many different kinds of three dimensional design there. Architects in Michigan can do a lot of renderings that are views of a space three dimensionally, but you can also go a step further and totally immerse yourself in the space with virtual reality. You can do that by using virtual reality helmets or goggles or even cheaper things like a Google cardboard or something like that. But this lets you actually feel like you are inside the space as opposed to just seeing an image like you took a photograph inside the space and both are really great ways to showcase designs before they’re built.

Renderings are a lot of work and Architects in Michigan spend a lot of time rendering their designs to make them look real and it takes a lot of skill to be able to do that, which is why renderings would be more expensive than just producing a floor plan or something Two dimensional.

When you create a three dimensional rendering, it’s important to take it from the perspective of a person. Like you’re standing in the space, but you can also take 3D, you can also take perspectives from up higher to show off the entire floor plan in more of a three dimensional way, but both are great views to show off the design to the client and to your design team. Many Architects in Michigan build their designs in three dimensions and then export them into a different software to layer on the materials and the finer details and then we use even another software after that to give us the more realistic rendering. So there’s a lot of steps that go into it and a lot of little details. When you’re doing a rendering, you’re showing off the entire space. You’re not just showing that there is a table there. You’re showing exactly I’ll how high the table is and what it looks like. So there are a lot of small details that you’ll get out of a rendering more than you’ll get out of a floor plan. 3D renderings done by architects in Michigan are really great ways to help your clients raise funds for specific projects. Sedgewick + Ferweda has worked on a couple of projects where a client is in the very beginning stages and they need to do a capital campaign or they’re doing a Fundraiser for their nonprofit where they need to show the people that are donating to their cause, what they’re actually donating to. And this is best done by renderings of the spaces. They look nice enough to where you can show them to potential donors and they can visualize the space right off the bat. Like they’re looking at a photograph which can help architects in Michigan raise Money for their clients so that the project can actually be built. In the past, 3D renderings were mainly done by hand by the architect or a specific rendering position that might’ve been in an office because that was really the only way to do it was, you know, take your 2D drawings, turn them into isometric drawings, which will show the three dimensions and then from there visualize the space and then hand draw a rendering using a two-point perspective or a one-point perspective. So that would be done by talented architects who could also sketch really well and draw these renderings and make them look decently realistic, which requires a lot of skill. But now with the technology that we have, it’s more accessible for every architecture firm, large and small, to be able to do their own renderings. Some businesses, specialize in renderings. So architecture firms will, contract those renderings out so they don’t have to spend time on them in the firm. Although Sedgewick + Ferweda architects do all of their own renderings and house, which I think is a really great tool because when you’re doing them yourself, you notice a lot more when you’re working in the three-dimensional realm in your firm for design, it just helps Architects in Michigan produce better designs.

3D renderings do require quite a bit of time put in in order to get them to a point where they look a little bit realistic. Renderings do not all have to be perfectly finished for clients to understand them either.  Preliminary 3d renderings are great tools to show the client what you are thinking in simple black and white, maybe with a little bit of shadow, before the designer gets too far off of what the client wants. If the client sees a final rendering that took 15 hours to do, and they want to change the location of a door or window, all the work goes out the window and must be started over. These primo library drawings that architects in Michigan utilize is to save the client maybe making sure we don’t waste tons of time on ideas that the client doesn’t want to pursue. From the start of a project to the construction of the building 3d renderings are utilized for the client and the designers benefit. It is a tool that used to only be used in hand drawings of isometrics that would take quite a bit of time but now we can do it in a decent amount of time with our great 3d software like Revit and Sketchup.