How do you show a client a space that does not exist yet and let them choose between a wood floor and a tile floor before a single slab is poured? This case study is a set of interior rendering examples from seven projects and a partnership built around decisions that cannot be un-built.
The Client and the Task
Electric Bowery is an architecture and interior design studio founded in Venice, California, in 2013 by Cayley Lambur and Lucia Bartholomew (both former members of the project team at Gehry Partners in Los Angeles). Their portfolio spans residential projects across the LA area, Big Sur, Santa Barbara, Park City, and New York City, alongside boutique hospitality work for brands including Wildflower Farms (an Auberge Resort), Casa Cody in Palm Springs, Silver Lake Pool & Inn, and Trailborn.
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Most rendering orders from our clients arrive after the design is already finalized: they need a polished image of a completed concept. Electric Bowery’s orders work differently. Their renderings are part of the creative process itself: interior visualization sets organized by camera positions, material option comparisons, and interactive revision rounds where client markup shapes the design as it develops. When the design package calls for furniture that does not exist in any 3D library, the order also includes custom furniture modeling from reference images. The work comes in by project, not by one-off request. Over the collaboration period, seven projects moved through ArchiCGI’s pipeline.
The Challenge: Decisions That Cannot Be Un-Built
Renderings, for a studio like Electric Bowery, are a decision tool. This is a pattern across studios that treat exterior and interior 3D rendering as part of design development: the task is not only to present the design, but to test it. Wood floor or tile floor? Window frame wider or narrower? Natural brick on the chimney or painted? These are choices that, once built, cost real money to reverse. The client meeting where they get approved may be two days away.
That pressure shapes what ArchiCGI delivers. Each rendering needs to isolate a single variable (the material, the dimension, the furniture placement) and hold everything else constant so the comparison is fair. Same camera angle. Same lighting. Same time of day. The only difference is the decision the client needs to make. The render examples below show exactly how that works in practice.
There is a second layer to the challenge. The design packages Electric Bowery sends often include furniture and lighting pieces the studio designed for a specific space. A banquette bench shaped to fit a dining niche. A counter stool with a ruffled cushion. A wall sconce that wraps around a fireplace column. These do not exist in any stock 3D model library, and substituting a “close enough” piece would break both the rendering and the downstream construction drawings.
Views, Cameras, and Option Sets
The 3D rendering examples in this project are organized the way a design studio actually uses them: by camera, by option, and by material variation.
What one set contains
A single order from Electric Bowery is not a single image. It is a set of camera positions covering an entire space. For the Ocean View residence shown above, one order delivered views of the kitchen, primary bedroom, entry, living room, and 3D dining room, each from the angle that would appear in the client presentation.
Wood or tile, wider or narrower
| Option 1 - wood | Option 2 - tile |
The same scene rendered with two different floor materials (one with wood, one with tile) gives the client a direct visual comparison in identical lighting and from the same camera position.
| Exterior option 1 | Exterior option 2 |
For this exterior, two views were rendered with different material finishes so the client could compare options before construction.
White-ghosted furniture, full-color scene
One of Electric Bowery’s recurring instructions reads: “All furniture to be white ghosted. All lighting to be rendered in full color.” This is a deliberate technique known as white-ghosted furniture rendering. By reducing the furniture to transparent wireframe volumes (a treatment also called clay rendering), the studio strips away upholstery patterns, cushion textures, and wood grain from the movable pieces. What remains is architecture: the timber framing, the cabinetry, the marble countertop, the proportions of the island relative to the room. In the kitchen view above, the stools, dining chairs, and lighting fixtures appear as semi-transparent outlines while the fixed elements (wood paneling, stone, appliances) are fully rendered. The client evaluates the space itself, not a specific stool that may still change.
Custom Furniture and Lighting: Modeled, Not Bought
This section of the case study is about furniture 3D modeling: specifically, a 3D furniture modeling service that produces one-off pieces from a designer’s reference images, not a library of pre-built assets.
Why a library model does not always fit
When a studio designs a banquette bench to fit a specific niche in a dining room, or a counter stool with a ruffled cushion that matches the kitchen’s textile palette, no stock 3D model library carries it. Substituting a visually similar piece from a catalog might work for an early concept image, but it fails at the stage where renders feed directly into construction decisions. The dimensions would be wrong. The visual language would drift. And the downstream shop drawings (which reference the same geometry) would describe a piece that does not match what was built.
From reference images to a 3D model
Electric Bowery sends reference images, dimensions, and material callouts. ArchiCGI’s modeling team builds each piece to spec. For the Pine Tree Lane project alone, ten custom items were modeled: a lounge chair, coffee table, fireplace wall sconce, ceiling light, dining chairs, banquette bench, dining table, chandelier, dining wall sconce, and a counter stool with ruffle cushion. Additional lighting fixtures were modeled for the Ocean View residence.
From 3D model to finished scene
The counter stool with ruffle cushion shown earlier as a 3D model appears here in its final context: tucked under the kitchen island, fully textured, lit by natural light from the windows. Every custom piece is delivered in two formats: a .max file for continued use in 3ds Max scenes and a .glb file (a lightweight, web-ready format suitable for client presentations, AR previews, and browser-based viewers). The model becomes a reusable asset for the studio: it can appear in future scenes, updated presentations, or marketing materials without being re-modeled.
How the Work Runs: Orders, Revisions, Deadlines
The workflow follows a consistent pattern. Electric Bowery submits a design package (floor plans, elevations, material references, furniture callouts, and, where needed, reference images for custom pieces). ArchiCGI returns the first set of views. The client marks up the renderings directly, adjusting a window position here, flagging a material swap there, and the revision cycle begins. Each version narrows the gap between what the client imagines and what will be built.
Urgency is often part of the job. When a client meeting is scheduled for the end of the week, the rendering package needs to be ready before it, not after. Electric Bowery proactively requests expedited turnaround when timelines compress, and our team is always ready to adjust accordingly.
The Result
Fifty-five rendered images, twelve custom-modeled furniture and lighting pieces delivered in production and web-ready formats, and seven residential projects moved from design development through client approvals so far. Every one of the completed tasks received the highest client rating.
But the number that matters most is not in any of those totals. It is the fact that Electric Bowery comes back with each new project. The rendering partnership is not a one-time production job. It is a standing part of the studio’s design development workflow. When the next residence enters the pipeline, the next order follows.
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Catherine Paul
Content Writer, Editor at ArchiCGI
Catherine is a content writer and editor. In her articles, she explains how CGI is transforming the world of architecture and design. Outside of office, she enjoys yoga, travelling, and watching horrors.
