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Cappuccino shots with virtual buildings and static fountains abound in most of Shanghai's print media, as developers scramble to pre-sell their latest real estate offering. A UK company, H4 Consulting, is in China to bring these buildings to life. Established in London in 1996, the company is a prominent user of 3D technology to aid property design and marketing.
H4's product straddles the lifelike images of high quality computer games and the digital world of Star Wars cityscapes. It allows total 3D viewing of a property at the design stage, including mathematically correct proportions, colouring, design styles and building environment. These 'photo realistic views' both promote co-operation during the design process and provide a much higher definition of projects to prospective customers. Initially founded as an outsourcing centre for the UK market, since 2002, H4 has set up a dedicated China sales team to promote the product here.
The demands of the UK and China markets have remained quite distinct up until now. In the UK, clients including British Land, Hammersons, Berkely Homes, DTZ and Fosters & Partners use H4 products for marketing but increasingly as a design development tool. Significant savings are offered with architects able to clearly articulate their ideas to developers and planning committees, thus avoid costly mistakes or misunderstandings. So, sign off on projects is usually achieved much more quickly when using 3D animations and images.
In China, the situation is different. This type of product is less established amongst the design and architectural community, who still mainly work off 2D drawings. However, the much higher instances of 'off-plan' selling provides significant opportunities to launch 3D as a premium marketing product. In this sense, the main uses for the product may turn out to be quite distinct between China and Western countries.
Progress in China has recently taken a measured step forward after the winning of a major contract on a landmark building in the Xintiandi area. In this case, both landlord and selling agent wished to create a much more comprehensive pre-sales image than that available either in 2D format or from some of the existing local 3D design firms. In respect of the latter group, despite some market use of 3D images, these have tended to give highly stylised and rather vague images of the exterior or interior of buildings. The H4 concept is to take this to a different level with much more detailed external and internal imaging, to include aspects such as raised flooring, overhead ducting, views from different window locations etc. Both the feel and detail of the building must be brought to life.
In China, receptiveness to new technologies, increased competition amongst developers and changing design techniques offer duel opportunities in both design and sales markets. While the focus has principally been on Shanghai, future projects in Beijing, Hong Kong and inland cities offer exciting possibilities. There is also an opportunity to create a distinctive 3D style for China, akin either the crisp UK images or softer, artistic styles required for the French market. As Angus Peacock, China Operations Manager expresses it: "the way real estate is sold and consumers react to technology makes me excited about our prospects here, it's a quite different challenge from the European market."
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