Young architects Rose Florian and Kordae Henry created a website for their fellow students, where staff figures of people with a skin color other than white are freely available. So the authors of the project are trying to restore the ethnic imbalance that is traditionally present in architectural renderings. Project Just Nøt the Same the guys launched last year, about 80% of the characters presented Henry photographed himself.
Florian is Puerto Rican and completed her BA in her home country. Henry is African American and attended a historically black college in Baltimore. The creators of the drain met during their subsequent studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Even then, they had the idea to start making their own staffage, since the choice of figurines for student projects was scarce. It is worth noting that Just Nøt the Same is not the only resource where you can find a variety of nationally diverse staffing for visualizations. Sites also specialize in such content. Escalalatina (besides people, there are images of animals here), Nonscandinavia (for non-commercial purposes only) and Skalgubbrasil.
It is generally accepted that an architect is the profession of white men, and sad statistics confirm this. Obviously, the renders reflect this situation, and their content is chosen "in the image and likeness" of the creator (in this case, the architect). Human figures are traditionally used in design drawings to define the scale of a building and clarify its placement in context. In addition, this is one of the ways to tell who the building is intended for, to outline the psychological and physical portrait of future users. For example, in the 1960s, staffing men reflected the distribution of gender roles: men were usually portrayed as relaxing in the living room, while female figures were busy in the kitchen. The fact that all the "heroes" of the visualizations were white is not worth mentioning.
Nowadays, despite the fairly rich selection, not all architects are in a hurry to put staff figures on their renders. “Our firm is not dedicated to making hyper-realistic pictures,” explains Ben Porto of the New York-based architecture firm Snarkitecture. "It's easier for us not to put any people there at all." Porto himself prefers to use blurred figures: he is sure that architecture should speak for itself. Plus, adding images of people increases the lead time.
The architects of the large Chicago-based firm Perkins + Will said that the visualization of their own projects is sometimes outsourced to Russian and Shanghai studios. At the same time, Chicagoans meticulously monitor that the images are attended by a sufficiently diverse group of people.
Other architects believe rendering people are essential when it comes to public buildings and spaces. The head of his own studio, Stephen Yablon, notes that it is almost impossible to do without "living" characters if you want to present the building as friendly.
New York-based creative agency Visualhouse has gone even further: its employees make excursions around the construction site and take pictures of people on the street (of course, not forgetting to take the model's disclaimer). The resulting images are used in renders. “This gives us the right demographic sample,” explains founder Robert Herrick. True, this technique does not guarantee the social diversity of the staff. “Brooklyn will be mainly hipsters, people of different nationalities,” explains Herrick. "And in Midtown Manhattan (business district of Manhattan - approx. Archi.ru) there will be people in suits and with briefcases."
The end-user request also has to be taken into account. Visualhouse has developed renders for Oceanwide Plaza, a Los Angeles-based project that has been implemented by Chinese developers. “It was necessary to take into account the interests of two categories of customers at the same time: local, American, and Chinese, - continues the head of the New York studio. - I had to draw several groups at once: both Asians and Los Angeles residents in Lakers jerseys (a basketball team from Los Angeles; one of the most titled NBA teams - Archi.ru's note)."
