The technology:
Overhead visualizations showing a building's relationship to its site — footprint, landscape, access, parking, and surrounding context. Ranges from diagrammatic colored plans to fully rendered V-Ray orthographic views.
A site plan shows what no elevation or interior view can: how a building relates to its site, how people arrive and circulate, where parking and service access sit, and how the landscape is organized. We produce site plan visualizations from technical drawings and 3D models — the level of visual detail scaled to the purpose, from simple colored diagrams for planning submissions to fully rendered orthographic views for marketing and master planning presentations.
Diagrammatic vs rendered
Choosing the right approach depends on audience and purpose
| Diagrammatic plan | Rendered orthographic | |
|---|---|---|
| Visual style | Flat color fills, simplified geometry | V-Ray orthographic render with materials, shadows, planting |
| Information clarity | High — zones, labels, annotations read easily | Moderate — visual richness can compete with information |
| Production time | Faster | Slower — full 3D model and materials required |
| Typical use | Planning applications, master plan diagrams, phasing | Marketing, competition panels, high-profile planning submissions |
| Shadow accuracy | Schematic — indicative sun direction | Real sun angle from site coordinates and time of day |
| Scale range | Works at any scale, including very large sites | Most effective at mid-scale — single building to small district |
What a site plan communicates
Building footprint and height — the plan shows the outline of buildings, and shadow length indicates relative height. For multi-building schemes, the massing relationships between structures read clearly.
Access and circulation — pedestrian routes, vehicle access points, emergency vehicle paths, and cycling infrastructure are shown in the context of the surrounding street network.
Landscape — planting, hard surfaces, water features, and open space. For residential developments especially, the quality of outdoor space is a significant selling point and needs to be legible.
Phasing — for developments built in stages, series of site plans showing each phase separately are a standard planning submission component.
Context — surrounding buildings, public spaces, and landmarks shown at appropriate simplification. The level of context detail is calibrated so it doesn’t overwhelm the proposed development.
Scale considerations
Site plans work at very different scales — a single-building site plan might cover 50×50 meters; a master plan might cover several square kilometers. We set up the graphic system for the scale of the project:
- Single building — full landscape detail, materials legible, people shown at street level scale
- Block or district — simplified building massing, route hierarchy readable, key public spaces identifiable
- Master plan / urban scale — largely diagrammatic, zones and phases the primary content, individual buildings represented as simple footprints
What we need from you
| Site plan drawings | CAD layout plan with building footprints, landscape, access, and site boundary. Geo-referenced if available. |
| Building heights | Floor count or height in meters — used to calculate shadow lengths for the chosen sun position. |
| Landscape design | Planting plans, hard landscape drawings, or indicative species if the landscape design is not yet resolved. |
| Context data | Surrounding buildings and streets. We use OS mapping or OpenStreetMap as a base for context if not supplied. |
| Purpose and scale | Planning submission, marketing, or master plan? The intended use determines the appropriate level of detail and graphic approach. |
Related techniques
For a real aerial photograph of the site rather than a drawn plan: Aerial Photography
For showing the building composited into a real aerial photograph: Aerial Integration
For showing individual unit layouts within the building: Marketing Level Plan
