Parallax: Architectural Visualisation Now
by Paul Loh and Andrei Dolnikov
Format
Hardback, 204pp, 230x285mm
ISBN
9781922601445
“If drawings are practical, then visualisations should communicate the possibilities and potential of architecture, not just its literal facts.”
—Nic Clear, architect, writer, curator, and Professor of Architecture at the University of Huddersfield.
The days when architectural propositions were represented solely by hand drawings are long gone. Over the past century, the way we represent architecture has evolved from hand-drawing to computer-aided drafting, to building information modelling, and now to AI-driven image generation and worldbuilding. But perhaps the most significant change of all has come not with the tools we use to make architectural images, but in the role that they play: architectural visualisation is now the primary medium through which we imagine our cities, their values and their potential. In the argument for the future, it is our lingua franca.
In this richly illustrated book, Andrei Dolnikov and Paul Loh survey 14 world-leading architectural visualisation practitioners to determine the state of the art. Drawing on decades of teaching and practice, their discussions explore how architectural visualisation shapes the conversation around our cities, enabling broader public engagement while blurring disciplinary boundaries across architecture, technology, film, digital art, and experiential design. They reveal how expert practitioners craft and deploy their visualisations for maximum effect, how they situate their work within its social and cultural context, and where they believe their future lies in the wake of AI’s burgeoning power.
Parallax: Architectural Visualisation Now paints a collective portrait of architectural visualisation as both a creative practice and a cultural force at a moment of profound technological transition. It also demonstrates that, while it is often used as a tool of persuasion, architectural visualisation holds radical potential as a means to imagine alternative futures and ways of living.
Featured practices: Beauty and The Bit, BINYAN, Factory Fifteen, Gabriel Saunders, HISM, Inferstudio, HUSH, Liam Young, Luxigon, MILINSKI, Pico Velásquez, Pureblink, Space Popular, Xcessive Aesthetics
Paul Loh is an architect, researcher, and educator based at the University of Melbourne, where he leads research into computational design, digital fabrication, and the intersection of architectural practice and emerging technology. His work spans built projects, installations, and critical writing, and he has exhibited internationally across Asia, Europe, and North America. Loh brings to Parallax a rigorous analytical perspective on how digital tools are reshaping not only the production of architecture, but also its public imagination.
Andrei Dolnikov is a designer and academic whose practice operates across architectural visualisation, interactive media, and spatial experience. He has worked with leading studios internationally and brings firsthand practitioner knowledge to the book’s inquiry, complementing Loh’s theoretical rigour with an intimate understanding of the craft, culture, and business of architectural image-making. Together, Dolnikov and Loh have spent years teaching visualisation practice and developing the research that underpins Parallax.
About the authors