▲ More quality content, follow “Search Architecture“
Hong Kong Sun Hung Kai Properties ONE SOHO
Gensler is a major client of ICON. Mr. Deng told me that ICON collaborates not only with Gensler’s Shanghai office but also has business dealings with their global offices.
This set is from 2019, designed by Gensler’s Los Angeles office for the Irvine Airport, named after John Wayne, who won the Best Actor award at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1969 for “True Grit.” This set of images directly showcases the various detailed considerations that should be present in a rendering, clean, clear, and accurate, especially the first image, which is likely a private jet waiting area.
This set is also designed by Gensler’s Los Angeles office, showcasing the reception area of Amazon’s office. The scene itself is small, showing two perspectives of the same trophy wall. Interestingly, both sets used the same flooring material. The clear lighting environment, accurate material representation, and regimented camera angles make these interior renderings not only a product of ICON but also a good demonstration of Gensler’s basic delivery standards for commercial projects, reflecting a rugged yet refined American style.
From the rendering perspective, the daytime scene aligns well with LA’s climatic characteristics, while the nighttime scene showcases technical prowess. In 2019, domestic projects often preferred vibrant colors in the rendering, especially in the lighting colors of the project itself, but this nighttime scene is well-executed: the building’s internal lights share a common hue, with only the rooftop terrace and street-side outdoor displays showing some color.
A set of airport bidding drawings from Gensler’s Washington office, with a project located in Australia. The bidding drawings are noticeably more streamlined than the previous Los Angeles office projects, leaning more towards large-scale atmospheric visuals, highlighting the landscape design features of the supporting buildings. The details of the scheme are kept simple where possible, and the color palette is much more restrained, with clear main colors on the drawings, and other colors coordinated to fit this overarching tone.
The Suzhou Zhongnan Center, also designed by Gensler, features a classic perspective and color scheme during dusk. Before 2018, this type of rendering was quite common. However, from a development perspective, the Zhongnan Center has been in complete stagnation after a celebration for the completion of its deep foundation pit, leaving the ambition of this super tower in Suzhou temporarily confined to renderings.
David Chipperfield’s rendering for the Shanghai Yuyuan and Leicester College bid at the end of 2021, before he received the Pritzker Prize. Similar to Gensler’s exterior views, David’s renderings clearly showcase the overall space. From the perspective of rendering production, this may be considered a post-production version in China, but this clarity under the urban perspective demonstrates the designer’s grasp of spatial scale, handling of urban surroundings, and confidence in detailing. To directly say that the rendering is good or the design is good seems a bit reckless; what matters is how well the two collaborate to play a foundational role in project decision-making and evaluation.
The first image has a very clear MIR compositional approach: partial perspective, elongated foreground, realistic style, strong shadow contrast, full model, and sufficient facade detail representation. From a technical rendering perspective, having this image is already a success, with the aesthetic sensibilities of the three parties—ICON, CHAP, and THUPDI—aligned.
The gmp Haining Silk Town project, a work from 2021. Viewed from the perspective of 2021, this image is textbook-like in terms of composition and lighting environment: sufficient foreground scenery, corner scenery, semi-dusk but with stable tones, indoor lighting at the base of the building, and a certain level of detail in the model, reflecting gmp’s accumulation and creativity in curtain wall design. However, looking at it from 2024, aside from the model itself, this “textbook” rendering is also the type of effect that AI can most easily achieve.
Clou Architects’ Wuhou Xingyuehui in Chengdu, the project has been completed. If you haven’t seen its commercial photography, the first rendering can easily raise doubts about whether it’s a real scene or a rendering. The image well showcases the interaction of this complex with urban space, as well as the design’s consideration for creating multiple ground floors and naturally introducing an internal sunken plaza. Especially the combination of the black, white, and gray pavement commonly used by Clou with the overcast tones highlights the building’s atrium’s dominant position in the entire site.
Additionally, if ICON did not further refine the model, then the model provided by UN is obviously clean and accurate, especially under the overall semantic form of the curve.
MAD’s Yiwu Grand Theatre, the scheme has similarities with Xiamen Xinhe Design Center and China Philharmonic Orchestra projects. The image shows a clear difference in style from the MAD Philharmonic Orchestra project done by SAN. ICON’s collaboration with MAD, utilizing real scene synthesis, highlights a tranquil beauty, finding a balance in the realistic expression of MAD’s facade creativity.
The following set features Wanhu’s diagrams, specifically for the Chengdu Luhua development. Due to different clients, the collaboration between Wanhu and ICON is noticeably freer than the diagrams from design companies, emphasizing a more emotional living atmosphere from an aerial view rather than a meticulous clear expression. Moreover, since Wanhu primarily focuses on concentrated area development, the images often showcase the scope of its own project area, emphasizing the urban design dimension of living atmosphere rather than the delicacy and scale of individual units.
This set showcases Wanhu’s community public facilities and the third phase of Chengdu Luhua’s Guolan. The first four images of the dam feature large blocks of color reminiscent of Doug & Wolf’s style, while the first image of the third phase exudes a sense of pride and confidence akin to MIR’s work for Bofill. However, the last two images of the Guolan project appear somewhat ordinary in their representation of water surfaces and banks.
10 design Chongqing Luhua Jiangcheng Park Reception Hall
Tongji Second Hospital Xi’an Tiandi Source
Shanghai Civil Aviation New Era Certain Airport Competition
goa Shanghai Sunac Huangpu Project
benoy Zhuhai World Trade
Baoyi Real Estate Yijiang Linfeng
Mayslits Kassif Architects Tel Aviv University
HOK-NY Hawaii Atlantis
SAOTA AIYAHOOM TOWER
HDR Australia Wollongong Competition
HPP Budapest Urban Design
Expansion Road Hong Kong Chengdu Smart Media City
Tongji Institute North Bund 480m Super High-rise
CRTKL Changsha Beichen Super High-rise Competition
From my first rendering article in 2015 to today, it has been nine years. During this time, I have always had a question: what exactly does rendering, a small branch in graphical representation, depict, and how will it develop in the future?
As mentioned at the beginning, from the earliest brazil, scan line, to vray, then to lumion, D5, and the AI tools that started last year, the production of renderings has become increasingly simplified, with parameters becoming more integrated, and terminals becoming more portable. Now there is a hand-drawing app that can connect to the internet, allowing for a leap from hand-drawn concept sketches to visual effects globally, making the large-scale rendering factory work model a thing of the “historical query.”
However, I believe the future of renderings will head towards a more expensive direction: on one hand, the mechanically inclined workforce is gradually being squeezed out of this industry due to cost constraints; on the other hand, the demand for innovative styles in the face of big data replication will not disappear. Creative visuals will become more precious and will require strong accumulation and filtering of existing styles: after all, the realism pursued by renderings over the past 30 years is now almost free.
When I used to browse various art exhibitions, I would always be stunned for half a day by the order of display and the chronological relationships of these artworks. But while writing this article, I truly feel that this generation is experiencing a transformation across commercial art forms. These transformations resemble an invisible exhibition that not only records the transition from human to artificial intelligence but also glimpses the shadows of economic development in the two-dimensional world.
juansha
WeChat public account “Search Architecture” (ID: sjz9999)
Cooperation, promotion, contributions
ContactWeChat: soujianzhu006