Architectural Visualization in a Healing-Centric Environment

Architects & FirmsMASS Design Group ✕ .fullWidthDiv p{ text-align: center; font-style: italic; }

The history of architectural visualization has been dominated by its association with glossy, photorealistic, and “final” images. At best, these highly curated depictions - frequently outsourced by architects to specialists - are perceived as an optional extra; they are a means of bringing a design proposal to life to give a particular edge in a presentation or competition. At worst, they are seen as an exercise in deception, using the now almost universal availability of photorealistic technology to lend authority to something not yet fully resolved.

That we so often view renders as these end products speaks to the hold that photorealism still has over visualization as a means of architectural representation. Technological advances have no doubt led to some incredible results; the ability to render realistically is now widespread, easier, and faster than ever before. But while with other forms of representation we appreciate that there can be a range of uses and outcomes – a pencil sketch, for example, can be just as valuable when it is quick and conceptual or highly detailed - visualization is too often tied to its role as an “end product.”

What is required is a shift in mindset and approach. Both our understanding of visualization and its technological developments have been overwhelmingly driven by this race for photorealism. While this has certainly had its uses, it has also overshadowed the more nuanced, communicative capabilities of visualization as a completely new and relatively underexplored means of representation.

Using a recent project by MASS Design Group as an example, we can consider some of the impressive impacts of weaving visualization through a project’s development, rather than simply introducing it at the fundraising or end stage.

In 2019, MASS Design Group won a design competition to create a new facility for the Haven Domestic Violence Shelter in Montana, which is due to open in May this year. For Haven, the project marks a shift in their provision, from providing centers that are undisclosed and private towards spaces that are more open and community-facing, while still balancing vital security and privacy concerns.

Rendering courtesy of MASS Design Group

For MASS, which seeks in all its projects to explore how architecture can play a role in promoting human dignity, the project felt like a perfect match. Haven’s care model and framework are based on a concept treating the “Whole Person”. This model ensures that survivors are treated beyond their trauma, by acknowledging the layered background and intersections each person brings with them when seeking refuge and counsel, providing clear pathways to achieve independence and easy access to basic social services. “Part of our shift from a confidential model to a secure disclosed model goes back to the Whole People idea - we want to give our survivors the easiest possible access to everything that the general community could access,” explained Haven’s executive director, Erica Coyle.

This philosophy is one that begins during the design process, looking for ways in which users and stakeholders can feel a sense of agency and purpose – and it is through this approach that visualization demonstrates the new roles it is able to take on. Throughout the entire design process of Haven, as in many of their design projects, MASS made use of Lumion to visualize everything from landscaping and massing to interior details and sun paths. Visualization was employed not simply as a means of creating a closed, final depiction of a project, but as a way of communicating an entire approach. Crucially, it allowed this approach to be accessible to the survivors who will use the building. It was a consideration that emerged as soon as MASS entered the Haven competition, even creating a tension with the format itself.

“For us, the competition format doesn’t really fit, in the sense that you are expected to create a final object,” explains the project’s Boston-based design lead, Ana Fernández Martínez. The studio’s design for Haven was guided by a concept called trauma-informed design, an emerging approach that seeks to translate the tenets of trauma-informed care into the design of spaces that will actively support recovery. On paper, the principles of trauma-informed design are relatively simple. Clear lines of sight are crucial to ensure routes of entry, exit, and spatial sequencing. This should be aided by effective, straightforward way finding. Spaces should also be flexible and adaptable to meet a range of needs and empower their users, and color and materiality should be carefully considered to reduce noise and create a calm atmosphere.

Rendering courtesy of MASS Design Group

Such an approach - particularly the care and sensitivity it requires from a designer - has implications not only for the responsibility and role of the architect, but particularly the way in which they communicate. While the principles of trauma-informed design are ostensibly straightforward, their effectiveness is grounded in the user’s ability to understand and experience a space, making them difficult to communicate visually during a project’s development. Once again, MASS’s approach - particularly how it incorporated architectural visualization - became crucial here. “We used Lumion to visualize the project at every stage, from the competition to construction phase,” explained Fernández. “We wanted to make it clear that we were going to bring an idea of what trauma-informed design with this program would look like, but showing that it is going to be a process, not a final object.” “It’s about people feeling like they are part of the design…we wanted to inspire them to see our flexibility, and the fact that we want them to be heard.”

Using visualization to achieve this sense of agency and possibility would initially seem at odds with its more traditional purpose as an end-of-design presentation tool. But while MASS does have its own team capable of creating final, photorealistic renders, it has also recently begun to ensure that visualization is completely integrated into its workflows, with anyone involved in a project able to use Lumion to visualize projects at any stage. For Haven, and particularly the considerations of trauma-informed design, this proved indispensable.

Architectural visualizations allowed sight lines and spatial dimensions to be clearly portrayed and explored, not just to reassure the building’s users but also to help those designing them achieve a clearer sense of how a space would actually feel. “Seeing the project outside of the design documents, you could see opportunities where things could have better alignment,” said principal in charge and project architect Sarah Mohland. “We might make tweaks around how the ceiling levels are resolving that you just wouldn’t see in the design drawings,” she added.

Rendering courtesy of MASS Design Group

Portraying the shelter’s landscaping - a vital aspect of softening the boundaries between public and private - was also achieved effectively and easily using Lumion. So, too, were depictions of the center portraying different seasons and weather conditions, which the practice found proved an incredibly powerful means of communicating the design. Both acted as visual shortcuts, tapping into the unique ability of visualization to quickly connect to its viewers or evoke an atmosphere based on shared knowledge or experience. What would otherwise be difficult to explain or communicate in a design drawing becomes instantly relatable.

Rendering courtesy of MASS Design Group

Of course, shaking off some of the render’s reputation as an end product is not always easy. “Renderings are so attractive, and you sometimes need to make sure you keep them internal,” says Fernández. During the Haven design process, visualizations were not treated as final images, but were instead worked on top of, overlaid with material selections, colors, or diagrams. MASS also made use of several effects in Lumion to immediately make an image appear more artistic or conceptual, ensuring that the focus remains on the story the image needs to tell without distraction from hyper-realistic elements or creating a sense that decisions had already been made.

Rendering courtesy of MASS Design Group

While these more open-ended uses of visualization might seem to be in tension with photorealistic, “end-stage” rendering, there is no reason the two cannot be used together. For Haven, alongside more process-based uses of visualization, high-quality depictions were also created at the fundraising stage, where a different level of finish is needed. “Sometimes, in the case of fundraising, you do want to show a lot, and have a very clear vision. You have to over-design, even if you are pre-concept,” said Perlepe. “So, there are tensions like that which, depending on the partner and phase, you might need to navigate”

The project was one of the earliest examples of MASS involving a filmmaking team in the process of creating animations with Lumion, a method that it now uses regularly to bring greater narrative and communicative consideration to animations than a simple fly through. “Working in the animation space is fascinating,” continues Perlepe. “Typically, we would do a fly through…now, I find that they don’t communicate the spatial qualities as well and working in parallel with a film team to compose views that then tell a good story was one of the biggest lessons of this project,” she added.

The methods and lessons from Haven had several implications for how MASS continues to develop and consider its use of visualization. “Imagery which evokes some of the trauma-informed care ideology - ensuring that there are views and that there’s natural materials - I think we could use this imagery to help represent those ideas,” said Mohland. “In a way, photography might not be able to do that, but here you are able to have more control over what you are illustrating.”

As a project, however, it also prompts reflection on the practice of visualization, and how, as we move away from the concept of the render as an optional presentation piece, we might begin to better understand some of the huge potential that exists in making it an integrated part of the design process. Once we consider all the applications for visualization beyond the creation of a photorealistic depiction, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a whole world of uses, some of them relatively untapped, that are now easier than ever to incorporate into the design process.

“Everyone starts this journey of visualization thinking they need to have really good material at the end - you need to have very impressive images, and that’s where architects have had to outsource,” said Perlepe. “But Lumion has made it possible to use visualization throughout, and to produce most of the material mid-phase. We use it primarily as part of our design process, not at the end of the project, and that used to be the other way around.”

 

By Jon Astbury