White Brick Strip Mall — Case Study
Single-story white brick retail strip center with multiple tenant storefronts including bank, store, gym, and restaurant with parking lot.
Client
Mies Design Group
Industry
Retail & Mixed-Use Development
Objective
Design visualization and marketing collateral for a retail & mixed-use development project in Vancouver, BC
Deliverables
7 photorealistic exterior renders across aerial, corner-view, front-elevation, rear-view viewpoints
Project Overview
The brief for White Brick Strip Mall was clear in its ambition: produce a visualization set that does justice to a retail & mixed-use development design the Mies Design Group had spent months refining. No shortcuts, no generic fills, no stock-library greenery.
The Challenge
What made White Brick Strip Mall challenging wasn’t any single factor — it was the combination of tight timelines, high fidelity requirements, and multiple deliverable formats that all needed to sing.
Scale was deceptive in this project. Spaces that look modest in plan felt expansive in three dimensions, and communicating that spatial quality through a flat image required very deliberate camera work.
The design had details that only become visible at close range — joinery, hardware, texture variation. These details are exactly what separates a good render from a great one, and the Mies Design Group knew it.
Consistency across the full gallery was essential. When someone flips through all the images, they should feel like they’re walking through one coherent place — not looking at renders made by different people on different days.
Our Approach
Final delivery was staged. Hero images shipped first for immediate marketing use. The complete gallery followed shortly after, formatted for web, print, and presentation deck use.
Camera positions were proposed based on what the architecture does best — the moments where form, material, and light come together most compellingly. We presented grey-shaded compositions for approval before adding materials and entourage.
We delivered work-in-progress renders at two structured milestones. The first review caught composition and material issues. The second refined atmosphere and detail. By the time we hit final production, there were no surprises.
We started with an extended briefing — not just the drawings, but the thinking behind them. Understanding why the architect made certain material choices or oriented spaces in a particular way informed every creative decision downstream.
Post-production was intentional and restrained — subtle atmospheric haze, corrected colour temperature, refined contrast. The goal was always to enhance realism, not to fabricate it.
The Result
What started as a visualization brief became the foundation of the project’s brand identity. The renders are the first thing anyone sees when they encounter White Brick Strip Mall — and they’re designed to make that first impression count.
Need renders for your own project? Tell us about it — we’d like to hear what you’re working on. Or see more work like this.
Project Gallery
