UNDERGRADUATE
Kelvin Hoang—Norm Li Award for Outstanding Architectural Visualization

About the Award

To recognize students who demonstrate emerging talent in conveying design through 3D architectural visualization. Norm Li wants to build and maintain mutually rewarding relationships so that they can achieve exceptional results for their team and their clients. Through this award they hope to achieve the following objectives:

  • Build awareness of the archviz career path
  • Help prepare students and emerging archviz talent for the workforce
  • Cultivate community of 3D archviz artists
  • Build their employer profile for recruitment of new grads and alumni



The Impact of ArchViz

To supplement the typical architectural drawing set, visualization has assumed a pivotal role of showcasing the core essence of a design concept. A digital rendering is about evoking profound emotional responses, making spaces come alive, and fostering a deep sense of connection with the built environment. Architectural visualization possesses the capacity to encapsulate things that drawings fall short of, including elements such as the interplay of light, shadow, material, and form.

I have always kept this ideology in mind when generating digital imagery for architectural projects. For me, visualizations serve to enhance the presentation of concepts and formal gestures that I have been developing over the course of a project. Thus, not only should a rendering demonstrate the atmosphere of a space, but the overarching design concept as well.

In ASC 520/620, we were tasked with masterplanning a city block and designing an aquatic centre to revitalize the urban space of Hamilton, Ontario. Given the existing concerns of security on and within the site, my design emphasized the interplay of sight lines, as demonstrated in the visualization (right). There were multiple spatial relationships considered; for instance, glazing in multiple places was obscured via translucent material for occupant safety while still allowing for ambient light to penetrate the space. The visualization played a key role in exhibiting all major elements pertaining to this design ideology in the core space of the project (aquatic zone).

Visualization can also display the important relationship a design has with its site. For instance, the atrium in Clarion Hall (left) creates a perspective vantage point with St. Michael’s Cathedral (& Choir School) which is intrinsically linked to the program of the building. Thus, the design considers its presence and the visualization captures it.

In every rendering, I find it important to maintain a level of visual excitement and composition. Leading lines, the rule-of-thirds, and visual contrast are all elements I consider in my work, best exemplified below.

Thank you for awarding me with the Norm Li Award for Outstanding Architectural Visualization. It is an honour to be a recipient of this award as a student interested in emerging digital tools for visualization. I am motivated to delve deeper into other methods of visualizing design ideas in the near future.









Toronto Metropolitan Department of  Architectural Science Toronto, CA.