Rendering for architecture firms

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 the US, a building's design is a copyrighted work in its own right. The Copyright Office defines an architectural work as the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans or drawings, and copyright protects those created on or after December 1, 1990. Protection covers the overall form, including the exterior elevations, and the arrangement of interior walls and spaces, but not standard features such as windows and doors, or interior design.

The drawings can be a separate work again: the Office treats an architectural work and a technical drawing for it as separate works. Under AIA Document B101–2017, the Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect, the architect and its consultants are deemed the authors and owners of their Instruments of Service and retain copyright. The owner receives a license to use them solely and exclusively for constructing, using, maintaining, altering and adding to the project.

So the drawings a rendering is built from come with terms attached. When a developer or owner commissions renderings of your design, it is worth agreeing at the start who the images are for and where they will appear, from the client presentation to the award submission. Built from your documents at true scale, the renderings then show the design as drawn, for uses everyone has agreed.

Sources: U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 41: Copyright Registration of Architectural Works (revised 03/2021); AIA Contract Documents, The Rights of an Architect's Instruments of Service