RENDERS AND THE LUXURY OF ASSUMPTION: the luxury of assumption is taken in every effort to try and create something. unfortunately gaps in knowledge will always exist, because we are eternal learners. unless you're a master then the (subjective) architectural render will always have something to be critizied for. and we don't know what we don't know
i've started thinking about this as i reflect and ask myself "why are my renders like that?". why do i render like that? and specifically, why don't i do realistic renders? i think with realistic renders it may be easy to fall flat, or, i need to generally investigate why I don't place as much value on practicing them, even though clearly firms need realistic renderings. i mean, i was partly acknowledging that my projects so far have been very conceptual. they go from conceptual design to schematic design.
i know in architecture it's easy to present something with confidence in it, and not know its flaws especially if it's school work which is often individual and thus easier for the student to entrap themselves in their work, and become biased and harder for them to find flaws. renders are a place where that can happen, especially i.e. a first year student doing a realistic render of their project. imagine a conceptual project that is contextless and scaleless, rendered on a real site. wouldn't make much sense... right? and yet, firms need realistic renders. and yet I think there is art. and yet there is ultimately a showcase of effort. and yet there is intention. again, I think with creating any piece that presents itself as being culminative, "final" like renders, we are taking the luxury of assumption that our piece conveys proper, thorough knowledge of everything there is to be known about how to create the piece in particular. and depending on how good you actually are, the degree to which your piece is separated from reality will decrease
i just think that generally in architecture, students tend to take luxury of assumption in their renders with bigger gaps of knowledge. I genuinely think that this happens as a more common rule of thumb of sorts, and it goes back to the gaps between architecture school and architectural practice. i guess i already believe that so i believe this to be reinforced by that and it is all anecdotal and based on experience in these systems. but even if all this were to be true, even if there is truly a luxury of assumptions that we take and often fall flat in when creating our earliest renders in our careers ... you still have to try or else you won't learn, right? if you never do you never learn. if you never make a render, who knows what your renders will look like when you really have to make one. and presumably your process will be bad which implies it will be inefficient, which does matter. not just for your own time but for the efficiency of your work at wherever your work.