Exterior renders people believe,
before the ground is broken.

3D exterior rendering for architects, developers and housebuilders. Facades, houses and commercial buildings modelled from your drawings, dressed in the materials you specified and set in the street they will actually stand in.

  • Fixed price quote in 30 minutes, first preview in days
  • Clay view first, so camera and sun are agreed before the costly work
  • 4K delivery standard, full usage rights included
Upload your drawings, get a quote See the work

We only take a limited number of projects each month, so every scene gets top quality.

3D exterior rendering of a curved stone tower base and its streetscape at dusk, Finland
The short version

What is 3D exterior rendering?

Building the outside of a building inside 3D software, and lighting it until the image is indistinguishable from a photograph of the finished thing.

The model comes off your drawings. The cladding, glazing and roofing are the ones you specified. The street, the neighbours and the planting are modelled around it. Then it is lit to a real hour and rendered at photographic quality.

An exterior is the image a scheme is judged on. It goes in front of a planning committee, into an investor deck, onto a hoarding and onto a portal listing, and in each of those rooms it is doing the same job: making a building that does not exist yet feel inevitable.

Which is why the work that matters is rarely the building. It is the light, the materials and the context around it, and that is where a render either convinces or announces itself as CGI.

3D exterior rendering of a waterfront apartment building, Norway
What the image is actually for

One render, three different rooms.

01

The planning committee

Committees do not read elevations the way architects do. A view from the pavement, at a real hour, with the neighbouring buildings shown honestly, answers the massing objection before it is made.

Overstate the context and you lose them permanently, so we do not.

3D exterior rendering of a new apartment block rising behind restored brick terraces, Estonia
02

The buyer, months early

Off-plan sales run on exteriors. The hero view is what a portal listing leads with and what a brochure opens on, and it is working for the whole period between launch and completion when there is nothing else to show.

Dusk aerial rendering of a waterfront apartment development with the lights coming on, Estonia
03

The design decision

Seeing a cladding at full size, in the right light, next to the material it actually meets, ends arguments that drawings prolong. Changing it in the model costs an afternoon. Changing it on site costs considerably more.

3D exterior rendering of a dark modern house on a snow-covered slope, Norway
Exterior rendering by sector

A house and a distribution shed are not the same job.

Different buyers, different objections, different image. What stays constant is that the context gets as much attention as the building.

3D exterior rendering of a white modern house cantilevered above a stone wall, Norway

Houses and villas

Single dwellings, where the render is often the only thing a client sees before committing. Materials at full size, the garden as it will actually be planted, and the light of the hour the house is best in.

3D exterior rendering of a residential block among pines with a playground below, Estonia

Apartment and residential blocks

The marketing set that sells units off-plan: the hero approach, the courtyard, the balcony view, the entrance at dusk with the lobby lit. Consistent enough that a brochure reads as one building rather than six.

3D exterior rendering of a gold and glass commercial arcade entrance, Tallinn, Estonia

Commercial and mixed use

Offices, retail and mixed-use frontages, where the ground floor does the work. Signage zones, entrance thresholds and the street life a leasing agent needs the image to promise.

3D exterior rendering of a hotel with a faceted metal facade on a city street at dusk, Estonia

Hospitality

Hotels and resorts, usually at dusk, because that is when the building is warmest and the guest is deciding. Arrival sequence, forecourt and the terrace the brochure will lead on.

3D exterior rendering of a turf-roofed timber cabin with a glazed gable among pines, Norway

Cabins and rural builds

Timber, turf roofs and hard weather. These live or die on the landscape around them being as carefully built as the building, which is most of the work on a rural scheme.

3D exterior rendering of a low white office and warehouse building with flagpoles, Finland

Industrial and logistics

Sheds, yards and distribution buildings. Unglamorous briefs that still have to be sold to a tenant, an investor or a planning committee, and are usually judged on how honestly the yard and the access are shown.

Why architects and developers choose us

A studio partner, not a render farm.

Globe and clock, illustrating European delivery across time zones

European delivery, workable time zones

An Estonian studio working since 2013 across Norway, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Germany, France, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. European hours mean overnight turnarounds for North America and same-day dialogue for Europe: comments in the evening, a revised frame by morning.

Signing a confidential agreement, illustrating NDA as standard

Confidentiality and NDA as standard

An unconsented scheme, a competition entry or a site you have not exchanged on yet is commercially sensitive. We work under NDA without being asked, keep every scene private, and never publish a project without permission.

Two professionals discussing drawings, illustrating direct communication

Direct communication, no account-manager wall

You talk to the people building your scene, not a ticket queue. Send the drawings, get a real number, brief the artist directly. Fewer hand-offs is why the first preview lands closer to right.

A consistent set of framed exteriors, illustrating one visual language

One consistent visual language

A development needs its images to look like one campaign, not ten freelancers. Across a set, or across years of repeat work, the light, materials and camera discipline hold, so the brochure reads as one building.

Where exteriors go wrong

Four things that give a render away.

Each of these is a decision, not an accident, and each one is visible in the frame beside it.

Raking dusk light across a faceted metal facade, every panel reading as a separate plane

Midday sun

Flat overhead light removes every shadow that describes depth, and a facade without depth reads as a cardboard model. The facade here is only legible because the sun is low enough to separate one panel from the next.

Brick mixed-use frontage where the brickwork varies course to course

Clean materials

Real brick varies course to course, real concrete stains under a sill, real glass takes the colour of whatever faces it. Preset materials render quickly and announce themselves instantly.

A town square rendering populated with people at cafe tables and on the pavement

Empty streets

A building with nobody near it has no scale. A handful of people at the right size, doing ordinary things, is what tells the eye how tall the door is and how wide the pavement runs.

New timber townhouses with hedges and street trees planted at handover size

Twenty-year planting

Mature trees around a new build flatter the image and undermine it. We plant what will be there on handover, because the committee has seen the trick before.

How a project runs

From drawings to final frame.

CAD drawings and elevations on a laptop at the brief stage
Brief

Brief and fixed quote

Upload CAD, PDF, Revit, SketchUp or a photograph of a sketch. We build the brief from your files, so there is no questionnaire, and reply with one fixed per-project price and a delivery date within 30 minutes.

Clay view of a residential tower and its neighbours, no materials and no light yet
Days 1-3

Camera and clay

The building goes up as untextured geometry and the camera is placed in it. Standing point, lens, height and the hour of the day are settled on a grey model, which is the cheapest moment in the project to change any of them.

The same tower from the same camera, delivered as a finished dusk render
Week 1

The same view, finished

Materials, real light and the context around it. Deliberately early, while the light and the finishes can still change cheaply. Two revision rounds are included and in practice we keep going until it is right.

The same development seen from the air at dusk, one of the later views off the same scene
Delivery

The rest of the set

Every further view comes off the scene already built, which is why the second image of a building costs a fraction of the first. 4K as standard, larger crops for print on request, full usage rights.

Clay model to final render

Drag to see what the render actually adds.

On the left is the clay view every exterior starts from: correct geometry, correct neighbours, and nothing else. No material, no weather, no hour.

Everything to the right of the handle is the part a planning committee and a buyer actually respond to. Same model, same camera, same building.

Real clay view and delivered frame from a residential tower in Tallinn.

Finished dusk render of the residential tower
Clay model of the same residential tower
Clay modelFinal render
Selected exteriors

Facades that did not exist yet.

Exterior work across the Nordics, the Baltics, Europe, the UK, the US and Australia. Filter by sector, by light, or by market.

See the full portfolio
What it costs

What an exterior render costs.

Priced per project rather than per image, because a single house and a forty-frame development set are not the same work. Rather than a "from" number that is true of nothing, here is what actually moves an exterior quote, so you can scope your own before you ask.

  • Number of views

    The first frame carries the whole scene build: the model, the site, the planting and the light. Every angle after it is markedly cheaper.

  • Building and facade complexity

    A rendered box and a faceted metal facade with a modelled balcony to every apartment are hours apart before anything is lit.

  • How much context there is

    A rural plot needs a landscape. A city infill needs the neighbours, the road, the street furniture and the pavement, all of which have to be right.

  • How ready your files are

    Clean CAD with elevations and a material schedule renders faster than a PDF we have to interpret and a spec we have to chase.

  • Resolution and crops

    4K as standard, larger for hoardings and print, plus how many aspect ratios you need cut from the same scene.

  • Hour and weather

    A dusk frame with every interior lit, or snow on the ground, is more work than the same building at midday and is usually worth it.

  • Motion or 360 from the same scene

    A flythrough or a panorama added afterwards costs a fraction of what it costs to build the scene twice.

Included in every project, at every size

These are not line items you negotiate up from. They are what the quote means.

  • Fixed price. One number for the project, agreed before we start, with the delivery date on it.
  • Clay view first. Camera, massing and hour signed off before any expensive work exists.
  • Two revision rounds, then refinement until you sign off. We do not stop at a count.
  • 4K delivery, with larger crops for print and hoardings on request at no extra charge.
  • Full usage rights for marketing, planning, portal listings, hoardings and your own portfolio.
  • The scene is kept, so next year's extra angle does not start from nothing.
Who commissions exteriors

Built for the people who have to get it approved.

An exterior is almost never bought for its own sake. It is bought because somebody has to say yes to something that does not exist yet.

Architect in a black turtleneck and round glasses

Architecture studios

Competition entries, planning submissions and client presentations. Your design, our light and materials, and one visual language holding across a whole submission rather than six images that disagree.

Read more
Real estate developer in a hard hat

Property developers

The hero view a launch runs on and the set that carries the whole period between launch and completion. Exteriors are the pre-sales asset that de-risks a scheme and speeds the raise.

Read more
Real estate agent in a blazer

Housebuilders and agents

House types rendered once and reused across every plot, plus the street scenes and plot-specific views a portal listing needs before there is anything on site to photograph.

Read more
Hotel manager in an elegant lobby

Hospitality and commercial owners

Hotels, retail and mixed-use frontages that have to be leased, financed or booked ahead of opening. Usually at dusk, because that is the hour the building is warmest and the decision gets made.

What you provide

How we plug into your workflow.

Built to slot into how architects and developers already work. You send what you have, we handle the rest.

CAD drawings, PDF plans and references we accept Final photoreal exterior render you receive

What we accept

DrawingsCAD (.dwg), PDF plans, elevations and sections, or a photograph of a hand sketch
3D and BIMSketchUp, Revit, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, 3ds Max, worked natively rather than re-drawn
The siteSite photographs, a survey, a street view link, or nothing at all if it is a greenfield plot
SpecificationCladding, glazing and roofing schedules, RAL or NCS references, supplier sheets, precedent images
No perfect briefA plan and one reference is enough to quote. There is no questionnaire to fill in first

What you receive

Final frames4K as standard, up to 8K to 12K on request for hoardings and large-format print
Every cropHero, web, social and print ratios cut from one scene, with no re-ordering for formats
Preview and revisionsA clay view within days, then two revision rounds and refinement until you sign off
Optional extrasAn aerial, a flythrough or a 360 panorama from the same scene, without rebuilding it
Full ownershipOf the delivered images, for marketing, planning, portals and your own portfolio

Need the rooms behind the facade or the scheme from the air? See interior rendering och visualisering av arkitektur.

Works with the rest of the set

An exterior brief rarely stays an exterior brief.

Everything below comes off the same model, so the second image is always cheaper than the first and the set agrees with itself.

3D interior rendering of a living room with people, France

Interior rendering

The rooms behind the facade, dressed and lit to sell the same scheme to the same buyer.

Interior rendering
Aerial rendering of brick apartment blocks in their city context, Estonia

Aerial visualization

The scheme in its site: neighbours, boundary, roofscape and how you get in.

Aerials
Approach view of a transit station, the kind of camera move an animation opens on

3D animation

The approach to the entrance, and the way a facade changes as you walk past it.

3D animation
Dollhouse 3D floor plan of a house and its garden, Estonia

3D floor plans

The plan a buyer can actually read, for the brochure and the portal listing.

3D floor plans
Questions we get asked

Exterior rendering FAQs.

What is 3D exterior rendering?
3D exterior rendering is the craft of showing a building's outside before it is built. The design is rebuilt as a 3D model from the architect's drawings, the specified cladding, glazing and roofing are applied as real materials, the site and its surroundings are modelled around it, and the whole thing is lit to a chosen hour and rendered at photographic quality. The output is used for planning submissions, investor decks, hoardings and off-plan sales.
How much does a 3D exterior rendering cost?
Per project rather than per image, because a single house and a forty-image development set are not the same job. The drivers are the number of views, how complex the building and its context are, how complete your files are, the output resolution and how much art direction the images need. Further angles of the same building cost markedly less than the first, because the scene is already built. Send the drawings and you get a fixed number in 30 minutes.
How long does an exterior render take?
A single hero view is about a week. A marketing set of six to twelve images runs two to three weeks. You see an untextured clay view within days of the brief, which is where the camera and the massing get agreed, and the first photoreal preview follows shortly after, while light and materials can still be changed cheaply.
What is the difference between exterior rendering and an aerial view?
Height and intent. An exterior render stands where a person would, so it sells the experience of arriving at the building. An aerial lifts the camera to show the scheme in its site: the neighbours, the boundary, the roofscape and the access. Most schemes want both, and because they come off the same model the second is much cheaper than the first.
Can you render a house from just a floor plan?
Yes, though the result is only as specific as what you give us. From a plan alone we have to make reasonable assumptions about heights, roof pitch and materials, and we will tell you which assumptions we made. Adding elevations or a photograph of the site removes most of that guesswork. If something essential is missing we say so when we quote, rather than halfway through.
Do you model the surroundings as well as the building?
Yes, and it is usually what separates a believable exterior from an obviously computer-generated one. Neighbouring buildings, the real road, planting at the size it will actually be on handover rather than in twenty years, and the parked cars and passers-by that give the frame its scale. Overstating the context is the quickest way to lose a planning committee's trust.
What time of day should the render be?
Whichever hour the building is best in, not whichever is easiest. A north-facing facade dies at midday and comes alive at dusk with the interiors lit. A rural house wants low sun and long shadows. We will recommend one and show you the clay view with the sun in that position before committing to it.
What files do you need to start?
Whatever you already have: CAD, PDF, SketchUp, Revit, ArchiCAD, 3ds Max, or a photograph of a hand sketch. You do not need a tidy file set to get a price, and you do not need to prepare anything first.
Start a project

Send your drawings, get a fixed quote in 30 minutes.

Upload the plans, elevations or model you already have. No budget dropdown, no discovery call first.

Upload your drawings, get a quote See how it works

We take a limited number of projects each month.