Renderings vs. Reality
How (and why) to evaluate images of proposed development projects
With Reno City Council still on its summer hiatus and no Planning Commission meeting this week, I thought I’d take a moment to discuss something that plays a large (and largely under-examined) role in the perceptions of a proposed development project: architectural renderings.
Renderings, of course, are those colorful digital images that architects, builders, planners, and developers generate to depict what a proposed building, complex, or larger project would look like in three dimensions.
They are used to secure investment or funding (think new university buildings). They are often submitted along with other plans and drawings as part of the application process for various permits. They can be released to the media to generate excitement and community buy-in. And when a project is subject to public review, they are included in the applicant’s presentation to help secure its approval.
Renderings are enormously helpful, since many of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to look at a structure’s floorplan or elevation (a drawing of a single façade) and picture what it would look like in the real world. Renderings solve that problem for us. And because they do what most of us cannot, it’s easy to take them at face value. We want to know how a building will look in a place, and renderings give us the answer.
Or do they? As with anything produced by humans as a means to an end—whether it’s a press release, an advertisement, or an Instagram post—renderings are created to show their subject in the very best light. That doesn’t mean they are necessarily intended to deceive or mislead, but it does mean that they--quite literally--don’t always present the full picture. [Not to mention the fact that, as a reader experienced in construction just pointed out to me, renderings often reflect an idealized version of how a design would materialize, an ideal that can be modified considerably between the points of rendering and construction, after budgetary reality hits and the cost-cutting begins.]
How (and why) to “read” a rendering
Let’s face it, renderings are cool. They show us places that don’t (yet) exist and inspire us to imagine a world where they do, a landscape with appealing architecture, soaring high-rises where vacant lots currently stand, lush green spaces, and transformed streets bustling with activity.
When successful, the images entice and excite us. But our task as critical consumers of those images is to look beyond the surface, to consider not just how a project would look in its intended context, but how it would function. The goal is not to police a designer’s aesthetic choices but to assess their potential impact, not only on the surrounding environment, but on the people (like us) who inhabit it.
The better we can get at “reading” architectural renderings, the better equipped we will be to accurately assess that impact. And to do so, we first have to realize that each rendering is the product of a series of deliberate choices made by its creator.
Today I want to look at some of those choices and consider how they can influence perceptions of a project—and what additional questions they might prompt us to ask about it.
Whose view is it, anyway?
Perhaps the most consequential factor in generating a rendering is that of perspective. As any Kardashian knows, a subject can appear very different when viewed from different angles, and the position and angle of the “camera” are key to highlighting one’s most positive features.
Aerial views are intended to show how a project will fit in with its environment and can be very helpful in conveying its overall location and form. But what they don’t convey is the human perspective, how a building or complex would be viewed and experienced on the pedestrian level. And because everything looks shorter and smaller when viewed from above, they can also give a distorted impression of a building’s height and massing.
For example, here’s the five-story MOD 2 apartment building currently under construction at the southeast corner of Stevenson and West 2nd Streets. This rendering, which was shown in City Council on September 23, 2020, looks southeast from a point at least ten stories above that intersection, a view no one will ever see. The rendering was shown to sell the City on the idea of abandoning adjacent Stevenson Street in order to create the green space on the right (the abandonment was not granted—at least not yet).
This photorealistic rendering in many ways provides a great sense of the surrounding context—Second Street, Arlington Towers, the Riverside Hotel, and the mountains beyond. But what doesn’t it convey very well? Two things: the building’s relationship to the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall (partially shown) and Cathedral (not shown) immediately to its east, and the view that would be experienced by anyone walking along the sidewalk in front of it. Here’s a Google Maps view of the site, for comparison.
It takes a close look to realize that placing vehicular access to the building’s parking garage on 2nd Street, with no other first-floor interest or even setbacks to provide a landscape buffer, will make for a rather unappealing, and even potentially dangerous, pedestrian experience. But we’re not shown the view from the ground level, which minimizes the perceived impact of that design choice.
What’s missing from this picture?
The framing of a rendering is another major factor with enormous potential to impact perceptions. One of the most egregious examples I’ve seen comes from the University of Nevada, Reno. Back in spring of 2020 when UNR presented renderings of the pedestrian skyway it was proposing to construct across Ninth Street, UNR reps presented views of it from two directions: east and west. In these renderings, the skyway crosses the street and then simply disappears behind the trees.
Faced with concerns about the structure’s potential impact on views of and from historic Morrill Hall, UNR later released a rendering of the skyway’s endpoint as viewed from the top of the hill. What they never showed, however, were images of the majority of the skyway—the entire 200-or-so-foot section that will extend across the hill to the level of the main campus, fully two-thirds of its entire length.
The greenbelt it will bisect, formally known as the Ninth Street Hill, is a section of the campus’ designated State Arboretum, and the impact of the skyway on it was the source of great community concern (including my own) about the project, and a primary reason we believed that City Council should not exempt the skyway from formal professional and citizen design review (which they went ahead and did anyway). But those who hoped to understand how the skyway would look from Ninth Street were out of luck.
Here’s a link to a video I created in August of 2020 showing the full extent of the hill that the skyway will cut across (you can also view the site plan on my blog). And of course, like the previous example, this rendering minimizes a sense of the skyway’s size by keeping the viewer at a distance, conveying how it will appear from approximately 150 feet away but no closer.
What are those people doing there?
I’ve mentioned before a terrific article from Strong Towns called “Leaving Value on the Table.” What it explains so well is the need to look beyond the illustrations of the happy people who populate many architectural renderings to analyze whether what’s being proposed there would actually deliver the vitality they promise.
The image below was included in the April 14th presentation from Jacobs Entertainment to City Council introducing the Development Agreement for what they hope in a major coup of self-promotional marketing to have the City officially brand the “Neon Line District.” The rendering depicts the “Glow Plaza,” an events space Jacobs says will open next month on West 4th Street, just east of Washington Street.
The rendering of the space shows the pre-existing color-blocked Onyx at 695 Apartments at the rear of the site and the low white wall the company has constructed along the south side of West 4th Street all the way from Washington to West Streets. In front of it, they’re showing crowds of people seated in grandstands that would somehow fit in the narrow space between the wall and street (see a Google Maps image here to see how unrealistic that is), viewing what looks to be a Hot August Nights parade. More people fill the open area behind the wall, clustered around what looks like a party tent and food trucks.
But what is Jacobs actually bringing to the table here? Take away the parade and the people and you’re left with an entire block of West 4th Street with no permanent structures. Hard to get too excited about that, or frankly, to consider it a “development” at all.
What’s lurking in the shadows?
Adding shadows and vegetation to a rendering can do a great deal to enhance its sense of realism. But used irresponsibly, they can mislead and obscure. One of the most unfortunate examples of this I’ve seen is found in the renderings of the apartments slated for construction at 700 Riverside Drive.
This project didn’t require any public review (although the issuing of its building permit is being appealed in a hearing scheduled for the July 28 City Council meeting) but developer Paddy Egan of Urban Lion provided a set of renderings to Mike Van Houten for a piece on his Downtown Makeover website, ostensibly to assuage concerns about the project’s impact on the historic Powning Conservation District. And although they were presented as “clearing up misconceptions,” a close reading of those renderings suggests otherwise.
I’ve put together a short video (below) to discuss more renderings of this project, but here I’d just like to discuss the image of the building’s north side, which faces Jones Street. Here’s the view of the site from that angle on Google Maps.
From the rendering, this side of the building looks fairly pleasant, a three-story façade with a fourth story tucked back on the top level and trees lining the sidewalk. But what’s with all those shadows depicted at street level, and what’s behind the trees?
The renderings don’t provide an answer. To find out, you have to access the actual architectural plans for the project, and when you do, you can clearly see that what those shadows and well-placed virtual trees hide is a 130+ foot-long wall punctuated only by five large grates, each more than six feet tall, which ventilate an interior parking garage, with a garbage service area on the east side that in the rendering (where east is left) is partially obscured by an especially large virtual tree.
What the rendering also does not show is that the building’s entire first floor will be raised several feet above ground level for flood protection, which means the first-floor parking garage will not only run the complete length of the building’s north side, but will sit on top of a foundation resting three to four feet above the existing sidewalk.
I created a short video discussing several of the renderings of 700 Riverside Drive that were featured on Downtown Makeover, to illustrate how the choices made in creating them serve to minimize the building’s perceived scale, massing, and overall impact.
For better or for worse, we are a highly visual society, and as a result, renderings of proposed projects can play a formative role in how they are perceived, discussed, and evaluated. If I’ve convinced you of anything today, I hope it’s that renderings deserve far more scrutiny and discussion than they generally get.
It’s perfectly understandable for the backers of a project to highlight its positive attributes. But that means it’s largely up to us (and the elected and appointed officials who review these projects on our behalf) to educate ourselves to better interpret what we’re being shown—and not shown—and to ask the questions that can help bring these projects into clearer focus, and ideally into better compliance with the needs of a walkable community, something I discussed several years ago in a TedX talk that you can view here. Our city’s residents, present and future, deserve no less from us.
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As always, you can view my previous e-newsletters, with more context, analysis, and tips, on my Substack site, https://thebarberbrief.substack.com/. Thanks for reading and have a great week!