RENDERS
Eleven renders by four studios show how people describe routes places to stay gatherings shelter from rain and maintenance.
People are often added to a rendering near the end, as a matter of scale. That is an editorial mistake. Someone sitting on a staircase proposes a way to inhabit it; someone climbing it explains a route. Change the gesture and you change the architecture we think we see.
Across eleven images by Beauty & The Bit, Kilograph, Brick Visual and JVA Renders, we examine actions, distances and groups. The question is not how many people make a scene feel “alive”, but what relationship between bodies and space appears—or disappears—with each choice.
What we observe and what can be concluded
The selection covers eight projects and four studios. It is purposive: scenes with recognizable actions or spatial relationships were chosen to compare different functions of human presence. It is not representative of the studios’ production and cannot establish their styles from these images.
Each complete image is treated as the unit of observation. We record presence and grouping, apparent size, position in the frame, visible activity and relationships with ground, seats, routes or work surfaces. Credits come from the authors’ pages; interpretations are based on visual analysis of the published images. The renders are retained without cropping or content alteration.
Postures and objects make it possible to describe represented actions. They do not establish identities, professions, personal relationships or emotional states. They are not actual occupancy data. No attention tests or viewer studies have been conducted: conclusions concern how the images are constructed, rather than measured effects on their viewers.
Movement: crossing a space and following a route
In Busy Day, Beauty & The Bit’s image of RBB Offices for HENN presents an interior through a circular frame. Blurred bodies appear in front; people stand or sit around desks and screens behind them. These two kinds of presence distinguish passing through a place from remaining within it. [1]
The number of figures contributes to a sense of activity, but activity does not depend on numbers alone. Depth, overlaps and the contrast between blurred foreground outlines and sharper figures behind them also matter. People participate in a compositional rhythm that is also shaped by ceiling lines and work surfaces.
The image represents movement without allowing us to measure its speed or identify how the blur was produced. It does not document an actual working day. Its interest lies in the relationship it proposes between circulation and occupation: the space appears to be crossed and used simultaneously.
In HOK Architects’ airport proposal visualized by Kilograph, circulation is described from within the route itself. Two figures occupy a substantial part of the foreground, while others appear on the escalators, becoming progressively smaller. The viewer is positioned alongside bodies moving towards the upper levels. [2]
People provide size references, although their more specific role is to indicate direction and continuity. A succession of bodies follows the incline, while handrails and escalator edges lead upwards. The scene makes a vertical connection readable in a way that figures scattered throughout the atrium would describe less precisely.
Luggage and backpacks place the action in a travel setting. There is no need to invent a relationship between the nearby figures for the image to work. Its architectural information comes from where they are and how their positions form a sequence along the route.
The staircase as a place to stay
The Berlin Hyp lobby image, a C.F. Møller Architects project visualized by Beauty & The Bit, concentrates human presence in two people sitting on the staircase. They face one another, with a visible hand gesture between them. A substantial area of floor remains unoccupied around them. [3]
This concentration gives the treads a specific role. The staircase remains readable as a connection between levels, while the bodies introduce another possibility: stopping, sitting and exchanging words or gestures. Leg positions, the height of the support and the distance between the figures describe the relationship with the timber more specifically than a standing person in the lobby would.
The scene does not need to populate every corner to communicate use. Two bodies are sufficient because their location coincides with the architectural element being interpreted. The surrounding empty space makes this small episode distinct without assigning the figures a profession or a personal relationship.
Civic Terrace, from the Tidal Room series, shows six nearby figures sitting at different heights on stone terraces. Several hold notebooks, and one extends a hand towards the group. Their arrangement constructs a scene of exchange around the steps, with water and architecture behind them. [4]
The body relates here to a broad, repeated support. Distances, changes in level and orientations make the ensemble readable as a gathering place. The close framing reveals points of contact and objects, giving the activity more detail than a general view would. There is no need to label the scene as a class or assign professions to its participants.
Tidal Room is an independent, uncommissioned conceptual study by NoName Architecture, with art direction and visualization by JVA Renders. It takes Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi as a reference; it does not document a collaboration with its architect or the actual operation of a built intervention.
Groups: proximity and distribution outdoors
In the Keller Auditorium image, a ZGF Architects project visualized by Brick Visual, several separate groups occupy the lawn. Some bodies sit close to the camera; other figures appear further away, towards the façade and entrance. Their distribution creates different degrees of proximity within a single scene. [5]
Grouping communicates something that an even spread of people would lose: certain spots are presented as places for shared occupation, while the gaps retain continuity for movement. Relationships between bodies, ground and building organize the open space into episodes without requiring a built element to mark each one.
The image proposes a possible occupation of the auditorium’s surroundings. It does not demonstrate that this occupation will occur or establish that the project creates social cohesion. Its contribution is visual: distances between groups and their relationship with the façade make an exterior accommodating different ways of staying readable.
The elevated Music Row view, an HPA Architecture project for Albion Development visualized by Brick Visual, shifts the analysis from gestures to distribution. People are small relative to the courtyard and the surrounding volumes. On the lawn, mats and postures consistent with exercise can be distinguished; other figures appear along curved paths. [5]
Distance reduces bodily detail but makes the positions of different activities visible in relation to one another. We can compare a more dispersed occupation in the centre with sequences of figures along the edges. The open space becomes readable as a whole in a way that the closer Keller Auditorium view does not offer.
Both images include groups and outdoor spaces, but they answer different questions. Keller makes bodily proximity observable. Music Row shows where people are distributed within a spatial organization. Camera height changes the information human presence can provide without turning it into a measure of capacity.
The nearby figure and the time of a pause
Another image of HOK Architects and Kilograph’s airport proposal presents a reclining body on a bench, with a suitcase nearby. A second figure stands among vegetation in the background. The scene changes pace from the escalator ascent: sustained contact with a surface becomes its main action. [2]
The posture makes it possible to recognize which part of the space supports this pause. The bench, luggage and relationship with the tree form a specific situation. The background figure helps convey depth without competing with the scale and extent of the nearer body.
The render proposes a way of waiting or resting, but it does not verify the seat’s comfort or the environmental performance of the vegetation shown. Its narrative precision lies in associating a posture with an architectural element. Within a single project, changing human activity can explain different moments along a route.
The image of the French Pavilion for Expo Osaka 2025, by Coldefy and CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati and visualized by Brick Visual, includes a large back-facing figure sitting on grass beneath flowering branches. The architecture remains in the background, accompanied by much smaller figures. [5][6]
The nearby body occupies a substantial area of the frame and establishes an immediate relationship with the ground. The size difference from the distant people makes depth perceptible. It also introduces a position from which to view the building: the pavilion is presented as part of a scene of staying in its surroundings.
The figure does not need to show a face to perform this role. Posture and contact with the lawn are sufficient. The scene suggests a pause without allowing us to infer the person’s emotion or identity. Proximity changes people’s compositional weight and the way we visually approach the architecture.
Activities that extend the story of use
Kilograph’s third airport scene introduces a musical performance. A platform brings together drums, guitar, keyboard and microphone, with several figures around it. Some nearby bodies are cut by the frame edges, while others raise their arms. The timber roof maintains the scene’s architectural continuity. [2]
The activity is recognizable through objects, postures and a specific spatial arrangement. There is a place to perform and another from which to attend. The distance between them, the platform and body orientations make it possible to imagine an episode of use beyond movement or waiting.
The render represents a possibility within the proposal published as Airport Competition. It does not establish that the airport stages concerts or that this programme belongs to a built commission. For image analysis, what matters is how the action makes a relationship between stage, audience and enclosure readable.
After the Water, also from Tidal Room, replaces the gathering on stone with a maintenance scene. Two figures bend beside grilles, with tools and plant debris on the steps. Repeating the action in two different positions connects the work with the extent of the surface reached by water. [4]
Human presence explains a specific material relationship here. The bodies direct attention towards grilles, treads and debris that might recede in a view devoted solely to the architectural ensemble. Stone is presented as a surface requiring intervention after an episode of water.
As part of NoName Architecture and JVA’s independent conceptual study, the image constructs a narrative hypothesis. It does not demonstrate the feasibility of its systems or document actual maintenance. Its contribution to the selection is to include an activity less common in presentation images: caring for a place as well as visiting it.
Rain turns the overhead volume into shelter
In Under the Belly, from The Urban Cave, a person sits beneath the museum’s suspended form while another blurred figure crosses the wet plaza. Rain introduces a condition that changes the meaning of both postures. Staying and moving are read in relation to the edge of an overhead volume, as well as to the ground. [7]
The seated body locates a place to stay in the sheltered area. The moving figure appears on the exposed surface, among reflections and visible rain. Together they make a boundary between adjacent situations readable: crossing the plaza and occupying the space beneath the building. Bodily action and weather make a relationship specific that the volume alone would leave more open.
The Urban Cave is an independent, uncommissioned conceptual study by NoName Architecture, with art direction and visualization by JVA Renders. It takes MAD Architects’ Lucas Museum and Studio-MLA’s landscape as references, without implying involvement in the official project. The scene represents possible shelter; it does not verify its actual protection against wind and rain.
What changes from one scene to another
The comparison does not establish a rule for how many people a render should contain. It distinguishes six relationships that depend on activity and its position within the architecture.
| Represented relationship | Figures | Visible architectural information |
|---|---|---|
| Movement and continuity | 1–2 | Movement between desks and ascent between levels. |
| Support and staying | 3–4 | Treads used as seats and as the setting for a gathering. |
| Proximity and distribution | 5–6 | Groups on the lawn and activities in relation to paths. |
| Pause and depth | 7–8 | A body’s relationship with a bench or foreground ground. |
| Activity and care | 9–10 | Space for a performance and action around grilles and steps. |
| Staying and shelter | 11 | The edge between the exposed plaza and staying under cover. |
In this table, “Figures” refers to image numbers, not a count of people.
Choosing people through their actions
The useful question when constructing a scene is which relationship should become visible. To explain a vertical connection, bodies should accompany its changes in level. To present a surface as a place to stay, contact between body and support provides information a distant figure cannot. To describe the organization of an exterior, distances between groups can be more informative than the detail of each posture.
Camera distance introduces another condition. A nearby body makes a hand’s support, the extent of the legs or contact with an object observable. An elevated view reveals distributions and continuities while losing some of these gestures. Neither view answers every question about a project on its own.
The three airport scenes make this observable within a single proposal: ascending, reclining and attending a performance explain different situations. In Tidal Room, gathering on stone and working beside a grille also change the story without changing the intervention’s conceptual setting. In The Urban Cave, rain connects crossing the plaza and staying under the overhead volume to the boundary of shelter.
Across the eleven renders analysed, people contribute specific information when activity connects to a recognizable element or spatial organization. Choosing a posture means choosing which part of the architecture is brought into a relationship with the body. This is its narrative role: making a specific way of using, crossing or caring for a place visible.
A useful test: mentally remove the people and ask what information is lost. If nothing changes, they may be decoration. If the route, scale or a place to stay disappears, they are part of the argument.
Sources and credits
Sources accessed on 1 October 2026. Project names and authorship were checked against studio portfolios and, for the French Pavilion, Coldefy’s project page. Visual interpretations belong to this research.
1. Beauty & The Bit · Busy Day / RBB Offices. https://beautyandthebit.com/project/busy-day
2. Kilograph · Airport Competition. https://kilograph.com/folio/airport-competition
3. Beauty & The Bit · Lobby / Berlin Hyp. https://beautyandthebit.com/project/lobby
4. JVA Renders · Tidal Room. https://jvarenders.com/projects/tidal-room-guggenheim-abu-dhabi-2/
5. Brick Visual · Image Selection. https://www.brickvisual.com/archviz/image-selection
6. Coldefy · French Pavilion, World Expo Osaka 2025. https://coldefy.fr/projet/french-pavilion-world-expo-osaka-2025/
7. JVA Renders · The Urban Cave. https://jvarenders.com/projects/the-urban-cave-lucas-museum-2/
