Residential Architectural Renderings: How They Benefit Distinct Stakeholders

21 February 2022

Shalini John

They are called dream homes for a reason. Whether they are cosy suburban homes with the perfect lawn and spotless white picket fences, featuring a happy family, a favourite pet and a few bicycles or sky-high apartments with sweeping views of a glittering urban landscape far below, there’s a dream-like quality to these perfect settings that needs to be conveyed as accurately and realistically as possible. Enter the white knight – residential architectural renderings.

In the realm of homebuilding construction, though residential architectural renderings are predominantly used to pre-sell housing projects during the post-design phase, there are other key facets to it that are often overlooked. The residential project stakeholders use different forms of architectural visualisation to serve distinct needs. On the one hand, homebuilders may use low-detail birds-eye rendered views and other perspectives to study how the essential components of a project relate to its context. Alternatively, building companies may partner with AEC visualisation firms providing photorealistic architectural 3D rendering services and other 3D residential visualisation services to create high-detail fly-through animations of the project’s exteriors and interiors complete with surroundings, furniture, wall textures, natural/artificial lights and fixtures.

Right from concept planning and designing to the post-design and pre-construction phases, 3D rendered walkthroughs and stills in the residential construction domain provide value to distinct participants: potential residents, contractors and homebuilders.

Ease of Presentation for Architects

Not all customers can read architectural drawings. Instead of guessing the outcome and have the architect explain the final outcome, renderings help architects give customers a photorealistic representation.
Architects can showcase the project in photorealistic detail. Architectural features, the general look of the building and how the building looks during the day and night can be represented with rendering.
Stakeholders can evaluate how the building fits into the immediate surroundings. Architectural renders can help architects show an urban landscape at night with crowded streets or quiet suburbs with lovely lawns. Stakeholders can see how harmonious the building is with the natural landscape.

Clarity for Potential Customers

Architectural 3D renderings benefit end users as well as potential buyers in a number of ways, such as:

Gaining in-depth clarity about the project, not always possible with 2D CAD floor plans and section drawings
Assessing the pros and cons of alternative design options using detailed virtual walk-throughs before actual construction begins on site
Conveniently identifying and estimating the costs of each of the design choices
Studying how distinct components relate to their respective contexts while avoiding unpleasant and costly changes during construction

Design Validation Tool for Contractors

Residential architectural renderings help contractors validate design before actual construction begins.

3D photorealistic scenes, both stills and videos, offer real insight into the spatial coordination of distinct architectural elements for the contracting team
Detailed 3D visualisation ensures the homebuilder, the contractor and the end user are all on the same page as far as understanding the form, function, and scope of the residential project.
3D rendered assets can expedite the local regulatory approval process.

Helps Homebuilders Convey & Promote Concepts

The most important gap that architectural renderings can fill is that they allow homebuilders to convey accurate, precise, and detailed design intent to the end users.

Serving as a key tool to promote, exhibit, and market their design concepts, 3D renders can add life to otherwise technical floor plans and monochrome perspective views by adding important facets that include textures, finishes, interiors, landscaping, and contextual and a humanistic environment.
Homebuilders can communicate and market their project details in a life-like photorealistic manner whilst the end users can navigate through finer nuances and request changes or clarifications before on-site construction commences.

Helps Homebuilders’ Marketing & Sales Teams Appeal to Emotions

Using 3D architectural rendering, sales and marketing teams can evoke a strong emotional response from prospective buyers, boosting sales and profitability.
Using modern rendering software, weather effects, lighting, plants, animals, people, furniture pieces, cars or household items can be featured in the renders. Viewers can feel the atmosphere of a setting and remember it well.
Aesthetics and functionality can be displayed effectively through architectural rendering, so that it becomes easier for the sales team to explain the advantages of a building and help convince customers about how certain features can be adapted in the future.

Homebuilders Can Prove the Cost-Quality Balance

Cheaper bids are not always the ideal choice, and using architectural rendering, the homebuilding firm can show proof that a higher price will ensure high quality.

3D visualisations can clearly show how the use of high-end materials will require less maintenance, resist weather and look attractive.
Architectural renderings can be used in brochure and other sales and marketing collaterals for customers to think over at their leisure and consider the benefits of the cost-quality balance.

Creating homebuilders’ 3D rendered images may be a challenge for certain firms, but an increasing number of firms prefer to outsource 3D residential visualisation services to offshore partners, who are reliable, experienced and cost-effective. This way, all the relevant stakeholders in a construction project can enjoy the distinct benefits.

XS CAD has valuable experience as a 3D rendering services provider, providing BIM modelling services, 3D residential visualisation services and homebuilders’ 3D rendered images for global firms. Our range of services for architects, contractors and homebuilders across the world include 2D architectural drafting, 3D CAD modelling services, 3D BIM modelling and 3D rendering services.

Learn more about our homebuilding visualisation services.