Beyond Photorealism

Computer rendering has come a long way in the last twenty years. But is it going in the right direction? Is the glossy photo-realistic image the only goal worth pursuing? And does the process of making it contribute enough to the design, or the ongoing dialogue with the client? There certainly are alternative modes of image-making. Frank Lloyd Wright, according to legend, could conceive a whole building in his head, and set it down rapidly, in plan and section. He would leave these drawings overnight to his assistant, who would set up a perspective. In the morning, FLW would spend an hour or two completing the rendering, ready for a lunch-time meeting with his clients. Today, many architects use their computers in the same way as FLW used his night-staff, to set-up an outline perspective, over which a rendering is produced by hand. Students, we observe, will often attempt to complete the rendering using a paint program such as Photoshop to apply textures and entourage in a kind of electronic collage