The Power of Lumion for Small Landscape Architecture and Design Firms

Owner of DuChene Design Solutions, landscape designer and entrepreneur Patrick DuChene describes how he uses Lumion’s fast 3D rendering to captivate audiences and thrill clients with compelling visualizations.

DuChene Design Solutions created this powerful, animated tour of what’s possible when rendering a small backyard space.

About a year ago, Patrick DuChene was attending the NALP National Collegiate Landscape Competition when he was asked to help prepare a 3D model and renders for a presentation.

And he had less than 12 hours to do everything.

Patrick contacted one of his 3D modelers who immediately went to work building the model, and he stepped in afterward to add the vegetation and finishing touches in preparation for rendering.

“This was before I had Lumion,” said Patrick. “And so there I was, stuck rendering at a bar. I couldn’t do anything else but sit there and wait for all these renders to run.”

“Thinking back on this experience, if you’re stuck waiting for renders, being at a bar isn’t so bad. But if I would have had Lumion, I could have rendered the images in a few minutes and been done. This was one of those huge, huge moments that could have been done faster with Lumion. What took almost 2 hours rendering with another program, I could have done in less than 10 minutes with Lumion.”

As the owner of DuChene Design Solutions, LLC, Patrick has worked with many landscape contractors across North America and Canada since founding his firm almost five years ago. And for his business, designing with DynaSCAPE Software, modeling in SketchUp and now rendering in Lumion have helped expand his business services while exceeding client expectations.

In this post, we sit down with Patrick DuChene of DuChene Design Solutions, LLC and discuss how fast 3D rendering software like Lumion has given his company the efficiency and quality needed to produce successful results in the landscape design/build industry.

The power of render efficiency and quality

DuChene Design Solutions works with landscape contractors for residential design-build projects, including outdoor living spaces, pools, structures, patios and so on. Working with 5 designers across the United States and Canada, Patrick is producing about one to two rendering projects a week and his clients are averaging over a 90% closing rate on all of his design and 3D projects.

His firm takes a client-centered approach to realizing different projects, and, for Patrick, compelling presentations are key.

“Providing a very powerful and impactful, clean-looking drawing is a big priority of mine for my clients.” - Patrick DuChene, Owner of DuChene Design Solutions, LLC. 

As Patrick outlined his company’s goals for 2018, he kept it simple. “I want to do things even quicker, better and more efficient. I hope to reduce the time it takes to produce designs and 3D presentations while actually improving the final product, which is not always easy to do.”

While the modeling process takes the same amount of time, Patrick stated that he’s actually able to do more things in Lumion than in other software.

“Lumion is GPU heavy, which enables me to create much better renders in a shorter amount of time with more affordable hardware. My clients can’t believe the difference, and it’s more affordable than before because I’m able to do it faster.”

The power of rendering on-the-go

While speed and high-quality rendering are essential for many landscape architects and designers, portability can also be an important point that’s often overlooked. With GPU technology getting more powerful while fitting into smaller form factors, it’s become easier and more affordable to get a laptop with a powerful enough graphics card for optimal Lumion performance.  

According to Patrick, “I can sit with a client, open up Lumion, make an adjustment and render on the fly, right away. You wouldn’t want to say, ‘Let’s wait 30 minutes for this render to finish.’ Just 30 seconds to render with Lumion and you’re done.”

“I take my laptop with me whenever I travel because you never know if something needs to be changed, or if I need to run a render, it’s really made my life even better.”

The power of presentations

Not only have Lumion renders helped both Patrick and his clients, as well as his clients’ clients, but these renders have been valuable for the construction crews too.

“I encourage the companies I work for to print [renders] out and give them to their crews to actually build the project, and that clears up a lot of questions and confusions regarding what it’s actually supposed to look like in the field.” Homeowners can also completely understand what they are getting as a result of these 3D images, which greatly reduces changes in the field after construction begins.

To look at this idea from a different perspective, Patrick likens it to buying an IKEA wardrobe. “If you didn’t have those directions with the pictures, it would be much harder to put together.”

The power of software compatibility

Good architectural software is adept at playing well with others. This way, architects and designers can create a streamlined process for improving render output.  

In Patrick’s case, he uses DynaSCAPE for design, SketchUp for modeling and Lumion for rendering.

“As a landscape designer, I need specific, North American trees and other plants, some of which Lumion doesn’t have in its content library. To work around this, my renders often include hybrid of Lumion figures and objects as well as DynaSCAPE Sketch 3D objects and figures.”

“Between DynaSCAPE and Lumion, I never have to worry about not finding what I need,” Patrick continued.

Beautiful results and fast 3D rendering for landscape architects and designers

Patrick DuChene’s success with DuChene Design Solutions is only one example of how Lumion can help small architecture firms, including interior design and landscape architecture firms.

Do you work with just a few other individuals? See how Lumion can help expand your services, implement efficiency in your rendering workflows and deliver more breathtaking results to clients.

For more information about how Lumion can benefit you, visit our What’s New page or join with hundreds of other passionate users on the Lumion Support Center.