Case Studies: Christopherson Homes Single Family Homes:
Santa Rosa, CA Santa Rosa, CA Ridgeline and hillside developments in scenic Sonoma County are typically subject to stringent planning regulations - and heated public debate. So when Christopherson Homes filed applications for two large subdivisions in south-west Santa Rosa, a visual presentation of the highest quality was required.
Maraizon International was enlisted to provide an interactive multimedia production, including detailed 3D simulations of all building designs, animated street scenes, and extensive visual impact simulations.
“The Linwood and Dauenhauer subdivisions comprised nearly 415 single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments. The first challenge was how to organize the workflow, keeping costs to our client at affordable levels,” says John Francis Leo. “The second was how to present so much information in a meaningful way.”
“To keep costs down we worked out a strategy of developing detailed models to demonstrate street scenes, while creating lower polygon assets for large-scale views. We then focused on combining this material to make a compelling and informative set of visuals.”
Visual impact simulations were developed from 12 vantage points. Each photo-simulation had to include all stages of development, showing existing conditions to begin with, followed by buildings but no new landscaping, then moving onto juvenile planting, mature planting, and, finally, a set of explanatory sheets to demonstrate the accuracy of each visual.
As John explains: “To show each of these in sequence would entail the viewing of 60 separate images. Allowing 30 seconds for each image would take 30 minutes, and this was only a small portion of the overall presentation!”
Also included were animated tours of the development, a series of facts and statistics regarding this development and City requirements, a sequence of abstract visuals to communicate site analyses, and comparisons with previous housing developments.
“This would represent an enormous amount of information to absorb in the course of one session, so we had to figure a way to make all the information accessible on demand,” says John. The solution was to combine everything into an interactive presentation, using ‘home base’ screens, each with multiple links to different parts of the document. “This way, when planners asked specific questions, the appropriate information could be accessed immediately.”
James Hummer, land use consultant, remarked: “The standard and organization of this material, quickly addressed all concerns regarding design and visual impact (SIC) and substantially speeded up approval for these projects.”
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