Alex Hogrefe’s making waves with a new kind of architectural consultancy, architectural visualisation. The basic idea is that better visuals help people understand a concept sooner.
But more than sketches, this form of visualisation helps you get the feel for a place. You can see why his latest visualisation has gone viral:
You can think of realistic visualisations as a form of early prototyping, like Frank Gehry, except these visuals illicit more emotional responses and feedback early in the design.
Interdisciplinary community leaders will recognise this as a convergence. And in this case, we can see how Alex created an inflection point to build a small but impactful community around him: the blog he started in university was full of practical how-tos. How Tos for a very narrow niche.
I created this website in the summer of 2009 while a student at Miami University of Ohio working towards a Master of Architecture degree. The original intention was to use the website as a means to communicate to my instructors the progress I was making on my thesis work.
Here he shows how to fake a sold-out crowd.
This is worth experimenting with The Sources. - we have a similar type of convergence, with small niche needs at the intersection of different markets and technologies, and a lack of practical instruction in all of them.