Can Urban Renders be Helpful in Master Planning?

Are Architectural Visualization Renderings Supporting Urban Planning Process?

An urban visualization, or aerial render, is a powerful tool that can be used to create and help visualize potential changes and general plan for urban development. By creating quality renderings of urban concepts, you can understand urban growth’s spatial components and dynamics of planning area better.

As urban areas continue to experience rapid population growth which initiates their development, a clear understanding of how these changes will impact the master planning concept is needed. Aerial renders provide an objective, visual representation of potential urban development projects, making them an effective tool for city designers and master planners. With aerial renderings, you can see how various urban design elements, such as buildings, road networks, and existing city structure can impact each. Moreover, you can easily explain all these urban planning components during participation presentations, competition pitches or while showing them in municipality and to your colleagues.

1st prize competition / Fietsznfabriek in Oostvest Haarlem, Netherlands / Urban architecture design: Paul de Ruiter Architecten & LAP Landscape & Urban Design / Urban rendering image: RNDR

The Bird’s Eye View Secret Power

Urban rendering images can help identify urban constraints and opportunities, such as urban density, transportation networks, environmental factors, land use patterns, and more. With this information in hand, you can develop effective urban master plans that consider the unique challenges and potential of a particular area, its context and building environment.

The aerial rendering images are very useful in urban design process in terms decision making for better visual coherency within the surrounding landscape, city or village. In simpler terms, by visualizing the planned areas, urban architects can check designed architectural forms, their rhythms, colors, and materials of the proposed project. It gives the opportunity to know if they fit the actual visual language of the city, in order to make the best decisions about design. Urban architects can decide with full awareness if they want to propose coherent or oppositional design to the existing situation. That gives the opportunity to play and plan the best possible change by evolving, contrasting or fitting into the existing urban or city structure. Like it was done while designing the LLoydpier vision and ideas in Rotterdam – the colors, materials, rhythms and the forms dynamic could only be fully expressed by aerial view render shot.

City renderings visualized Lloydpier concept and helped to understand project's idea.

Lloydpier in Rotterdam, Netherlands / Urban architecture design: Groosman Architecten / Collection of urban rendering images used to showcase the various aspects of proposed urban complex: RNDR

Whether it is creating detailed urban designs or communicating bigger urban development proposals to local stakeholders, citizens or municipalities, urban visualizations are a handy tool that can assist the design workflow. The right architectural visualization techniques used by architects in cities and local communities, can achieve better urban development goals because of testing sustainable ideas and interesting solutions in an understandable way to everyone involved in the process and discuss them.

Understanding the Dimensions of Urban Design

Ground and eye level renderings cannot provide city planners with valuable information about larger perspective, like urban landscapes, existing city structure, and architecture environments as they only offer a limited view of the built structure. However, they are important to the design process itself, because they show the human perspective and experience. Nonetheless, the planning process always starts from a bigger picture like master plans, and then step-by-step is being evolved further into detail. That is why aerial renderings can show the larger perspective and capture the dimension of changes proposed in the concept. This tool was used while we were working on the Beurskwartier – New City Center in Utrecht. While working on the project with Utrecht Municipality and urban planners, we were able to test a few options for future architectural forms and its materials. Thanks to this, the best decisions could be made. Everyone could understand the scale and scope of the change.

Urban visualizations were the main communication tool.

Beurskwartier – new city center in Utrecht / Urban architecture design idea: Urbanext + Utrecht Municipality / Design support & urban space rendering images: RNDR

So, whether you are planning on building a new urban development or simply visualizing how your current urban area could look in the future, an aerial render image can help you and all parties involved to better understand the spatial components and dynamics aspects of urban change which is proposed. The most important aspect of urban visualizations is potential changes for urban development can be delivered with more confidence and accuracy of proposed built environment.

Communication Made Easier in Urban Planners Life

With urban visualizations, you can easily showcase urban development projects and communicate urban planning proposals for your communities to your target groups. By creating accurate models of urban landscapes, buildings and cities, you can effectively demonstrate future urban dimensions, transportation, and the structure of the buildings.

By leveraging to enhance your urban concept presentations within the use of technology, such as 3D rendering images and urban visuals, city architect can bring urban development projects to life and communicate urban plans clearly and engagingly. City architect can also discuss them with citizens and involve them in the planning process, so the change is more understandable for main user group and communities in the future. As an example, the Watergeus project aerial views renderings where used during participation meeting by designers and developer during introduction meeting to the project with local citizens.

Urban renders and real estate renderings are a helpful marketing tool for developers

Watergeus in Leiden, Netherlands / Urban architecture design: FSD x Architekten Kombinatie x Delva / Urban art render used to present key elements of complex design to local citizens: RNDR

In the end, urban planners who want to promote efficient urban design workflow and change in their communities must have access to visual communication tools, which are easy to be understood by everyone. The appropriate urban visualizations can assist you in achieving your objectives with better results and citizens engagement, whether you are creating big scale urban master plans or simply making proposal for building a new quartier or district.

Finally, creating the cities for people will not be only an empty slogan. And isn’t there anything more important to tailor your urban concept for the citizens, final users… people who will live there?

Urban Renders Save Time

Urban visualizations can help in the planning and construction process by assisting urban planners in visualizing changes and communicating development recommendations. By developing urban models and city renderings, city planners and architects can more easily pinpoint urban potential and restrictions, including urban density, city visual coherency, analyzing the city visual dominants, and more. In addition, city planners can quickly detect problems with urban design and offer fixes by adopting visual communication solutions like 3D representations.

Urban visualizations are supportive tools for urban planning and construction procedures since they help to save time and money while achieving meaningful and sustainable urban development outcomes. The proper city visualizations can assist you in achieving your objectives quicker.

Visual Storytelling, Bigger Picture

The urban visualizations might be helpful in terms of conveying your story about the proposed urban project. That is why we focus a lot on creating mood and atmosphere during work on each image. Like you can see in the image below for Dubai Mosque. They help a lot to grasp and enhance the feeling of the space and attract more attention to proposed urban design.

Competition renders  helped to extract project uniqueness

Pending competition / Iconic Mosque in Dubai, UEA / Urban design: Sterling Presser Architects + Engineers x EMAAR / Urban renders: RNDR

Visual language reaches solutions which underline and extracts the possibilities of creating locally oriented projects. On urban plans and renderings it is easy to show local materials or plantations used, local weather, type of light or type of city density. All these can be expressed on aerial renderings and other visualizations, when it comes to telling the story of a particular city or area.

Client Expectation

When it comes to urban visualizations, client expectations will vary depending on the context of the project at hand. Clients may value accuracy and realism primarily, while others may be a bit more interested in engaging visualizations that effectively communicate urban planning proposals. City planners need to be able to balance these priorities when collaborating with clients and crafting effective urban visuals.

That said, urban visualizations are a very powerful tool and effective tool, that master planners can leverage to effectively communicate with clients and stakeholders alike. Visualizing requires accuracy, but it also requires creativity and urban designers who understand how to balance these two components for success. So, if you are looking to create effective urban visualizations that meet your client’s expectations, it is essential to have a strong understanding of urban planning fundamentals when choosing rendering company.

Conclusion about Urban Visualizations

Render images can be an invaluable tool in the master planning and design process, providing urban planners with a visual representation of how their urban designs and concepts will look and function once implemented. Aerial renders are particularly useful, as they allow the urban designers to visualize cities and developments from above, giving them a comprehensive view in context. By using high quality urban visualization techniques such as 3D modeling, master plan renderings or urban animations, the master planner can create engaging visual communication that help bring concepts and plans to life. So, if you are working on a master plan, urban concept, city quartier, or any other bigger scale project and need to visualize your urban designs, from every angle, consider using renders to help inform your planning decisions and guide the development process.

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Malgo Widaj

Malgo Widaj

founder and owner of RNDR, art director, and head of all operations at RNDR

After 10 years of designing public spaces around Europe in both projects and competitions, a desire was born to start an international atelier with an inclusive and sustainable approach, that focuses on meaningful beauty creation driven by tech. And it happened!

Now RNDR teams are helping product designers, architects, and developers around the globe to increase visual communication through storytelling images, improve media presence, win project competitions or leverage sales through rendering experiences.

Do You Have the Time and Skills
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Do You Have the Time and Skills
to Create High-Quality Renders?