Pumice Design / Approach

Digital, spatial.

Web / 3D / Architectural visualisation

Designing what people use, and visualising what doesn’t exist yet: websites designed and built from nothing, and places rendered before they are built — by the same hands, from the first sketch to the last frame.

How it goes.

How a project goes, in order.

  1. Discover

    We listen first: what you have, who it is for, and what would make it work. No pitch theatre.

  2. Define

    One clear direction, and one quote for the whole job, agreed in writing before anything is built.

  3. Create

    Designed, built and rendered by the same hands, and you watch it grow.

  4. Refine

    Launch is the middle, not the end: we measure, tune, and keep it fast.

01 / DigitalWebsites and real-time 3D

Designing what people use.

Simple to move through, extraordinary if you slow down.

A site should be fast, accessible and right on a phone — the kind people stop scrolling for — and its 3D tuned to run on a laptop and a phone alike.

On our front page the words and the pictures come first: the 3D draws its scenes over them, and the page reads complete without it. On data saver, or without WebGL 2, the Align Retreats walk is ten lines on paper — not a fallback, a different edit of the same piece.

The case study: Align Retreats ↗Take the walk (opens in a new tab) ↗

Painted forest: dark tree silhouettes against white mist, a shrub and mossy rocks on a sandy track.
Align Retreats, two thirds into the walk. Every edge here is a brush decision, made again on every frame.
The walk on a phone: mossy boulders in the foreground, tall trunks in mist.
The same forest on a phone, at 390 wide.

02 / SpatialVisualisation and rendering

Visualising what doesn’t exist yet.

Make it feel real before it is.

Photoreal stills and film from plans, a model or a sketch. Kahu’s drawing was read, not traced: every wall, opening and cabinet sits exactly where the plan puts it. What the plan didn’t say — how high, what of, how the light gets in — was designed, and is shown as a proposal rather than a decision.

Kahu’s pictures all come from one model, made by one program from the plan: a change to the plan is a change to a number and a re-run, not a week of remodelling. And the pictures are honest — a visualisation shows the design as it will be built.

The case study: Kahu ↗

  1. Kahu as a clay model: the house and its deck in plain white, on a pale ground.
    01Clay
  2. The same clay model, lit: warm light on the plain walls and the deck, a line of path stones in front.
    02Light
  3. The house in its materials: black board-and-batten, black joinery, a timber deck and steps, on bare ground.
    03Material
  4. The same house furnished: two chairs and a plant on the deck, the rooms seen through the glass.
    04Rooms
  5. The finished picture: lawn, red tussock, harakeke by the steps and a cabbage tree behind the house.
    05The world round it
  6. Kahu at night: every window lit warm, wall lights on the black cladding, a deep blue sky.
    06Night

One model, pass by pass: clay, light, material, the rooms, the world round it — and night.

What we make.

No list prices: every project is quoted, in full, once we know what it is.

  1. Websites

    Designed and built from nothing.

    Art direction, the design of every page, and the build: fast, accessible and right on a phone. The kind of site people stop scrolling for.

    Web design ↗

  2. Makeovers

    The site you have, made better.

    A new look, clearer pages and a faster, sharper site, without starting again or losing your address, your content or your place in search.

    Website redesign ↗

  3. Real-time 3D

    Worlds that run in the browser.

    Scenes that move with the scroll and answer the pointer, like the experience on this site: interactive stories, product configurators, landing pages nobody forgets.

    Interactive 3D ↗

  4. Rendering

    Architecture, interiors and products, rendered.

    Photoreal stills and film from plans, a model or a sketch: daylight studies, materials and finishes, walk-throughs and fly-overs, product shots with no studio hire.

    Architectural visualisation ↗

  5. Simple websites

    Not everything needs a film.

    Most businesses need a few clear pages — what you do, where you are, how to reach you — quick on a phone and easy to keep up to date. We make those too, with the same care.

    Simple websites ↗Ask about a simple website ↗

03 / PriceNZD or AUD

One fixed quote.

Agreed in writing before anything is built.

Every project is quoted per project, in full, before it starts: one fixed quote for the whole job, in NZD or AUD, depending on where you are.

The pumice, dark against a ring of light behind it, on the studio’s charcoal.Next: the studioAbout