Visualization by 100CGI Studio for an interior architecture practice: The Iron Grid Hub, a 32,500 sq ft creative campus in Abu Dhabi. Eight stills were delivered in 15 days.
The scheme is raw on purpose: exposed concrete, black steel, services left in view. Every client asks the same thing of a design like this, whether it will feel cold, and the images had to answer before the question reached the pitch room. Get the light slightly wrong and the space reads as a car park with desks in it.
The warmth was already in the drawings. A full-height stair in orange-brown perforated steel runs through the space, planting is threaded through timber ceiling beams, and the floor changes underfoot from zone to zone. Making all three legible in a still image was the job.
Abu Dhabi sun, left raw, blows out the glazing and kills every material behind it: the concrete goes chalk white, the stair goes neon, the planting reads as plastic. The design already answers this with architectural shading at the windows, so the shading was rendered doing its work rather than replaced with a softer sky. Light arrives diffused, enough to show the polished floor without scorching it, and layered fittings bring the warmth back indoors.
Rendered in 3ds Max and Corona. More projects from the city: office CGI in Abu Dhabi. Full case study: The Iron Grid Hub.
