How's your company dealing with the U.S. housing slump?

[visualride]

I work for an architectural design company with about 50 people in our office and me as the only 3d guy (modeling, rendering, animation, ...).

We had an all office conference call this morning about tightening our belts and doing without anything that is a 'want' instead of a 'need'. I feel fairly secure in my position because I've remained very busy as opposed to the drafters around me that are looking for something to do.

My question is: How are your offices doing, and do you think that 3D rendering work will stay busy this year because the clients want to differentiate themselves in a tight market? What's your opinion?

[glorybound]

tight market

you still need to sell... you can't sell a design to a client that they can't see. I think we are safe.

[ShaunDon]

Seriously, from where I'm sitting this is only good news for us. The U.S. residential market has been a lot slower than others (ie. Canada, Europe) to massively employ visualization. Lower demand means developers need to be more competitive to sell units, I think we'll start to see them wanting to one-up each other on viz work.

Shaun

[visualride]

Seriously, from where I'm sitting this is only good news for us. The U.S. residential market has been a lot slower than others (ie. Canada, Europe) to massively employ visualization. Lower demand means developers need to be more competitive to sell units, I think we'll start to see them wanting to one-up each other on viz work.

That's about how I've been seeing it, but it's good to hear that from another visualization artist, with the gloomy attitude of the architects in my office.

[ShaunDon]

I can understand why architects wouldn't be so chipper, it makes sense there'd be fewer buildings going up -- or at least clients won't be looking to spend as much on their new projects. That being said, they're making more people every day, higher population densities will always need newer and bigger buildings. Until the economy collapses.

Shaun

[jujubee]

You're also talking residential renderings - I still see no shortage of commercial buildings going up.