Question concerning designs you render... who came up with the design to begin with??

[Hazdaz]

So say you are rendering up a townhouse or office building. Where does your design come from? Is your job solely to render and someone else specifies the colors/finishes? What about the overall design?

 

Just curious how separated/specialized the architectural field is out there?

 

 

[alexg]

If you are in an architecture office, the flow is usually like this:

 

Client -> Brief of Programme -> Reference Images Study -> Conceptual Design Sketches in yellow trace paper -> Refining sketches into Plan / Elevation / Section in Cad -> Building physical / 3d model -> Presentation to Client to show design intent.

 

After feedback from client, the process is repeated and added with brief / constraint from Structural Engineer, Mechanical / Electrical Engineer, Sound / Acoustic, and Interior / Landscape designer. All becoming more complex to ensure the building performance.

 

In case of only conceptual image, the input mainly comes from the architect.

For later stage of design, where all engineers have been involved, input like colour, column size, etc came in from all directions, although usually this is gathered and compiled by the architect to simplify the 'chain of command'

[Ernest Burden III]

As a renderer, your work will be almost 100% drawing someone else's design. Its a portrait. You are painting a picture of a person that you did not create.

 

However, what happens all too often is that the design firm, architect, client...doesn't have everything worked out and the only way for you to complete your assignment is to make up parts of it. When you've spent a decade or two working on architectural projects, its usually pretty easy to come up with something that works visually. The problems start when the designer then says "oh, that's not what I would have done". Or you decide to bill for the design time.

 

Some people illustrate their own designs, but I think they would define themselves as a designer first. A renderer does illustrations and animations primarily.