There's Something about Archviz – Details, episodes & analysis

The job market was deeply affected by the pandemic. Many have started reevaluating their priorities, quit their old jobs, and perhaps shifted careers, starting the so-called Great Resignation. Today, however, I'm going to focus on another hot topic connected to the job market, which is the whole work-from-home debate. 

Our industry has very mixed stances when it comes to remote work. I've had many conversations about that these two years and heard many different opinions and I've been setting up my own home office myself way before the pandemic started.

However, today I'm giving the spotlight to Massimiliano Napoli, Head of Still Images Production at Diorama.

Diorama is set up as a production house rather than an archviz studio, and as such, it relies a lot on freelance work power. Diorama has always looked at remote work as a feasible business model, but the pandemic has pushed them to completely ditch the physical office and go full remote. 

In this episode, we go deeper into it, and discuss the lessons Diorama has learned from the pandemic in managing remote work, but also its limitations, especially when it comes to integrating junior and entry-level artists. We also go through some info on their technical setup for remote work and talk a lot about teamwork and the power of freelancing connected to their business model.

Despite the fact that they are a consistent part of our industry, in-house archviz artists don't really get the recognition they deserve.

In-house archviz artists work closely with architects. It's basically like having your client in the same room as you, so the kind of filters and barriers archviz firms put in place are a hundred times more difficult to raise. 

Expectations in architecture offices can be very high. In-house artists get a lot of pressure upon their shoulders, but in most cases, they don't have the possibility to work at the pace or with the conditions that archviz firms would enforce.

I discussed this and much more with Francisco Tirado, visual manager at Copenaghen-based firm COBE. Our talk was extremely insightful, Fran has a lot of experience not only working in-house, but also as a freelancer and as an employee of a world-renown archviz studio like Pixelflakes. 

All his experience and his love for the design process made him the ideal person to cover the role of in-house artist, which is something nowadays I wouldn't recommend to newcomers in the industry.

In this episode, we discuss his background, how he wins the trust of the design team when doing images and how he manages expectations. And we also discussed how to detach yourself emotionally from the work that you do, in order to keep your mental health in such a fast-paced work environment.

Mike Golden joins me on "There's Something about Archviz" for a two-parts episode on his experience in running a one-man show in the architectural visualization field.

Mike is the founder of Three Marks, a one-man show visualization studio largely focused on crafting CGI for luxury real estate. He is best known on the internet with the alias of Droquis, under which he crafts digital art. Mike is also a great lecturer, and he has been featured several times at industry conferences and schools around the world.

In this first part of the episode, Mike highlights the journey that led him from working for DBOX and Thomas Juul Hansen to found his own practice. We discuss the reasons that led him to launch Three Marks, the lessons he learned during his journey, and we talk about important skills for anyone who wants to run a business while having their hands in the process.

More about Mike, Three Marks and Droquis

Droquis

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/droquis
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/droquis
• Website: https://www.droquis.com/

Three Marks

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threemarks
• Website: http://www.threemarks.com/

In the first episode of There’s Something about Archviz of 2021 I’m joined by Ruggero Pedrini and Beatrice Piola from the Digital Architecture Department of Barcode Architects, an international architecture and urban design based in Rotterdam.

Although they form a large and underrepresented part of our industry, archviz artists working as in-house employees for architecture firms have usually much less exposure, so I was really glad to sit with them for this conversation.

In our chat, Ruggero and Beatrice told me how their department has carved out space to pursue research and development activity, how they push the result of their experiments to the design team and why it's important not to give certain workflows and technologies for granted when working in-house. We also delved into how they used AR to present in a fun and engaging way Casanova, a residential tower in Rotterdam which is one of the main ongoing projects designed by Barcode Architects.

More about Barcode Architects.

Barcode Architects

Website: https://barcodearchitects.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BarcodeArchitects/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisbtb/

The W65 App

Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/it/app/w65/id1530345739

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dad.w65&hl=de_AT&gl=US

There's Something about Archviz goes on a winter break too!

No interview today, this is a personal audio log on my 2020 tale. This is the last episode for this year, before returning in 2021 with great guests and topics.

Inner struggles, mental health, and future plans for "There's Something about Archviz" are at the core of this short episode. Kind of a personal recording, but I really felt the need to make a recollection of what happened in this hell of a year.

Want to get in touch? Send me an e-mail at podcast@bigpicturevisual.com

About Federico

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fbiancullo/

The Big Picture

• Website: https://www.bigpicturevisual.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigpicturevisual/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigpicturevisual
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thebigpicturevisual

The CTRL+Z Blog

• Website: https://ctrl-z.it/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctrlz.blog/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thectrlzblog/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.it/thectrlzblog/

For this episode of There’s Something about Archviz I am joined by Victor Bonafonte, art director, artist and co-founder of one of the most successful architectural communication firms, Beauty and The Bit.

Driven by curiosity and by the passion to try out new things, Victor pushed Beauty and The Bit’s work to the next step, and developed a cinematographic language for architectural animations. Their first animation short film Landmark, closed the gap with cinematography through brilliant storytelling and art direction and won a CGArchitect Award as Best Non-Commissioned Film in the process.

In our chat we explored how movies shaped Victor’s creative process, his sources of inspirations, why we shouldn’t be ashamed to show our knowledge and culture as creative professionals to our clients and much more.

More about Victor and Beauty and The Bit:

Beauty and the Bit

• Website: http://www.beautyandthebit.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beautyandthebit/
• Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/beautyandthebit
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisbtb/

Landmark, the first animation short film by Beauty and The Bit

• Link: https://vimeo.com/288135384
• Making of: https://vimeo.com/288140838

Fabio Palvelli is the guest of Episode #02 of "There's Something about Archviz"... no need for long introductions, if you've been in this field for more than a couple of months you've probably already seen him, or at least heard about him!

Fabio is the co-founder of the D2 Conferences, the world's largest archviz event. He is mostly known for his YouTube channel and his videos on the business of design, however, his main activity relies on consulting archviz companies and freelancers and guiding them on business-related matters.

We enjoyed a lengthy talk on how freelancers and archviz firms can try to differentiate themselves in the eyes of a client in an industry like ours, where tools are so readily accessible and great images are getting easier and easier to achieve.

Enjoy the talk!

More about Fabio Palvelli and the D2 Conferences:

About Fabio

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFN4VpkoUDkgvFzGb5E8Yhw
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabiopalvelli
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FabioPalvelli

D2 Conferences

• Website: https://vienna.d2conferences.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmtwpBESsOPz1A_juMDqFxA
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/d2conferences
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/d2conferences

Today's guest is Paolo Zambrini, CEO of ENGRAM Studio, EIDO and HERE. He's an industry veteran and one of the most influential people on the Italian archviz scene. His work is very well known even beyond national borders, and he has worked for top-tier clients such as Snohetta, MVRDV and UNStudio.

Paolo is deeply passionate about how images are born. We took a deep dive into the principles of imagemaking, and we discussed how we instinctually read images and what we should prioritize when creating one.

We also discussed the notion of “storytelling” in our industry, the fashion of branding ourselves as “storytellers”, how storytelling interacts with the image reading… and why it’s not such a simple deal as “telling a story”.

More about Paolo and his companies.

ENGRAM Studio

• Website: https://www.engram.it
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/engram_studio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EngramStudio

EIDO

• Website: https://www.eidovisual.com/

HERE

• Website: https://h3re.it/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_hereagency/

Welcome to "There's Something about Archviz", a series of conversations with experts and industry leader from the field of architectural visualization hosted by Federico Biancullo of The Big Picture!

Listen to this short introductory episode in which Federico explains why you should listen to this podcast, and what can you expect from the full episodes.

If you want us to cover a topic in particular, you want to suggest a guest or perhaps you want to be a guest in one of the episodes, write us an e-mail at podcast@bigpicturevisual.com. Feedback's also very appreciated!

More about Federico and his companies.

About Federico

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fbiancullo/

The Big Picture

• Website: https://www.bigpicturevisual.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigpicturevisual/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigpicturevisual
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thebigpicturevisual

The CTRL+Z Blog

• Website: https://ctrl-z.it/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctrlz.blog/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thectrlzblog/
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.it/thectrlzblog/

Welcome to the finale of Season 1 of the "There's Something about Archviz" Podcast!

In order to celebrate the first year of the podcast, I wanted to shuffle things a little bit. First of all, I conceived this episode with Georgi Lechtarski from The Creative Insider podcast, who is also going to co-host and mirror this episode on his podcast.

As for the episode... well, you've probably already guessed it by now, this time I'll be the guest of my own podcast! So, what are we going to talk about?

In August 2021, I hopped on the virtual stage of D2 Conferences, where I delivered a talk on the topic of mental health in our industry. This is something that involves me directly, as I suffered from burnout and depression connected to the work that I do. However, mental ill-being issues are more common than we want to tell ourselves in our industry, so I'm trying to spread awareness on the topic through my experience.

In today's episode, I delve a bit deeper into my experience with burnout and depression, how I realized I was going through a difficult time in my life, and why things were like that. I describe what were the manifestations of this ill-being, and how perfectionism and social media played into that. Finally, I also talk about how I fought back and what I learned in the process. Just a final word: all we're saying in this episode is not meant to be medical advice. Our experiences will most likely be different, and if you're going through a hard time in your life, I encourage you to consult a doctor and plan the best course of action for you.

If you feel like reaching out and sharing your experience, write me at podcast@bigpicturevisual.com I'm always happy when people talk openly about mental health in our field, that's the only way we can change things in a tangible way.

More about The Creative Insider at https://thecreativeinsider.com/links/