We build from your drawings, and you review on the image itself, so revisions are counted, kept and quick.
On a multi-family or mixed-use project you are usually the first consultant hired and the last one standing. Early on you test massing against the rules: height, density, setbacks, parking, and what the Official Community Plan intends for the site. You draw a schematic design, sit down with planning staff at a pre-application meeting, and start pulling together a team of consultants who each need a stable set to work from.
Through rezoning and the development permit, your job is persuasion as much as design. You write the design rationale, present to an advisory design panel where the municipality has one, answer staff comments round after round, and revise. Every revision ripples outward: the landscape plan, the shadow study, the renderings and the developer's pro forma all have to catch up with your latest set.
Once the permit is issued, design development and construction documents take over, then tender and site questions from the builder. By then marketing is already selling your building with images. The gap between what you approved and what the public sees is where architects lose the most sleep, and it is the gap a shared record closes. See how that record works on Order & review.
A useful habit: treat visuals as part of the drawing set, not an add-on. Decide at schematic design which views matter for staff, council and sales, and keep those camera positions through every round. Comparing the same view across versions shows what changed faster than any memo, and it protects you when someone asks, months later, what was actually approved.
A renderer guesses a spandrel colour or a railing type, the image lands in the sales centre, and buyers start asking for what they saw. You end up defending details you never drew.
We build the building in true 3D from your drawings. AI touches only light, season, landscaping, styling and people, and every frame is checked against the approved set before release.
More →Notes arrive as annotated PDFs, screenshots and phone calls. Two people mark the same window differently and nobody knows which note wins.
In StudioLink (live today) you pin comments on the image itself, in threads, with versions side by side.
More →One more small change becomes a fourth round and an invoice nobody expected.
Your scope states the rounds before we start. Extra rounds are quoted before we begin them, never after.
Staff comment on version three while the heritage consultant writes about version two. The report and the drawings disagree at the worst moment.
Every version is kept and dated on one record, and the approved one is the one everyone downloads.
A film that won't play on the room's system, or a deck emailed at midnight in the wrong format.
The CityLink presentation theatre (live) runs from one link in the chamber or on a laptop.
More →The roofline changed at development permit, but the brochure still shows the old one. When staff or buyers notice, the call comes to you.
Approvals sit on the record with dates, so marketing can see what is current before anything is printed.
The window is short and the design is still moving.
We scope to the date and tell you what fits. Fewer views done properly beat many done badly. One deadline, every time.
Visuals that sell the idea to lenders, council and buyers, early.
Decisions made once, in writing, not changed in a hallway.
The estimate, the scope and each approval sit on the same record, so a verbal change becomes a visible one.
Your current site plan, grades and building edges.
Planting and hardscape, so the ground plane in every view is real. See for landscape architects.
Both of you mark up the same image, and the renderer sees both notes in one thread.
Unit plans, window positions and ceiling heights.
A locked finish schedule and colour schemes before interior views are built.
Schemes are reviewed as versions of one scene, so nobody approves a kitchen from the wrong scheme.
Eye-height views and context that support their rationale.
Their comments before submission, not after.
They join as guests, comment on the current set and see your responses.
An accurate package and a clear list of what changed between rounds.
Comments in writing, tied to a specific submission.
CityLink keeps each round and what changed, so the conversation starts from the same page.
Approved images in every format they publish.
Confidence they only use what you approved.
They draw from the approved set, not a shared folder of drafts.
Plans, elevations, sections, site plan with grades, roof plan and the materials schedule. A model in the format you work in helps. Early massing is fine; we tell you what can be accurate at that stage.
You get an estimate in StudioLink listing views, rounds and the date, at the level you need: Model Only, Essentials, Premium or Interactive. Your client accepts it with the terms of engagement online.
We share plain-model views first. Moving a camera now is cheap; moving it after lighting and materials is not.
Pin comments where the problem is. Threads keep the answer next to the question.
The approved file is what marketing, staff and consultants use from then on.
We revise the model from your new drawings and add a version beside the old one, so the history stays intact.
Only as accurate as the drawings and model behind them. Ask whether the building is modelled from your drawings or painted over a massing. For staff and council, views should sit at a real person's eye height with a normal lens, and the method should be stated in the package.
Plans, elevations, sections, a site plan with grades, the roof plan and a materials schedule. A model helps but is not required. Site photos, a survey and the landscape plan let us build the context and ground plane correctly.
It depends on the stage and the number of views, and your scope says how many before we start. Most changes happen at the camera and material stage, so approving cameras early saves rounds later.
Yes. Everyone you invite gets a free guest dashboard with the access you give them, and all comments sit on the same image.
Usually yes, because that is when staff, council and neighbours form their view. Label them as proposed, and keep every version so the record shows what changed. Our guide to rezoning visuals in BC covers the sequence.
Since the province's 2023 housing legislation, many residential rezonings in BC that are consistent with the Official Community Plan no longer hold a public hearing. Exceptions and local procedures vary, so check with your municipality. Staff and council still decide on the application, so accurate visuals in the staff report matter as much as ever.
The number of views, how complex the building and its context are, interior versus exterior, the level of detail, the deadline and how settled the design is. Our rendering cost guide explains each one.
No. The building always comes from the true 3D model built from your drawings. AI can change light, season, landscaping, styling, people and motion, never a wall, a window or a finish.
Earlier than most do. Bringing us in at schematic design lets you test massing and materials in context before they harden, and fix the key camera positions that will carry through rezoning, permit and marketing. Late starts usually mean rushed views and more rounds.
