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Architectural rendering · New Zealand

Renders from your model, for projects in New Zealand.

New Zealand asks a render to carry an argument about landscape before it asks it to sell anything. Schedule 4 of the Resource Management Act 1991 requires an assessment of environmental effects to address any physical effect on the locality, including landscape and visual effects, so the image a planner opens is doing evidential work. That single requirement changes the brief. Camera positions get chosen because a person will actually stand there, eye height and lens length matter more than the sky, and a wide frame that carries context beats a tight hero shot. The statute itself is also moving. The 1991 Act remains operative while a Planning Bill and a Natural Environment Bill work through Parliament, and a separate consenting route already runs beside it. A set of images outlives that churn. The plan rules underneath them may not.

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Where renders get used here

Resource consent is the process that actually reads a picture. Clause 7 of Schedule 4 lists the matters an assessment of environmental effects must address, and landscape and visual effects sit among them, which is why photo simulations arrive as appendices rather than as brochures. Two other routes take the same material. A substantive application lodged under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 goes to an expert panel through the Environmental Protection Authority, and the landscape and visual assessment travels with it. An appeal reaches the Environment Court, where the practice note code of conduct binds the expert who relies on the image. Kallo makes the picture. Your own planners and landscape architects decide what it has to prove, lodge it, and answer for it.

Who decides

Environmental Protection Authority

Receives substantive applications on the fast-track route and supports the expert panel that reads the landscape and visual assessment lodged with them.

Environment Court of New Zealand

Hears appeals on consent decisions, where a simulation is tendered as an expert exhibit and the practice note governs whoever relies on it.

Tuia Pito Ora New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects

Publishes Te Tangi a te Manu, which sets how an assessor picks representative viewpoints and what a photo simulation has to declare about itself.

BIMinNZ Steering Group

Supplies the subject matter behind the New Zealand BIM Handbook, where a project agrees how project information is agreed and shared by the design team.

Preparing your brief

For a New Zealand project, start with the purpose of the images: a client presentation, a property launch or supporting material requested by your planning team. Include the current drawings, site photographs, chosen finishes and a short note on decisions still to be made. Tell us who will approve the work and when the presentation is due. If your consultants have a specific view list or submission requirements, include those with the brief. That gives everyone a clear basis for agreeing the deliverables without asking you to learn a new way of preparing your design.

What gets built here

Section 87A of the Resource Management Act 1991 sorts activities into classes, and it is the discretionary and non-complying end of that list which draws a visual assessment. Subdivision brings the extra information set out at clause 4 of Schedule 4, reclamation brings clause 5, and a notice of requirement for a designation runs its own track. Listed projects lodge substantive applications on the fast-track route instead. Coastal permits in the coastal marine area add a shoreline view nobody can photograph from dry land.

Working with Kallo

Kallo works with your team wherever your project is based. Share the approved design, the audience and the date you need the work. Your proposal confirms the images or film, review stages and delivery schedule.

  • Your presentation or launch date helps shape an agreed delivery schedule.
  • The proposal sets out the review stages and the changes included in your project.
  • Bring feedback together so your team can approve a clear direction.
  • Larger sets and complex projects get a confirmed schedule before work begins.
  • Project files and images are private unless publication is approved in writing.

Units and sheets

Units

Metric

Sheets

ISO A series

Models arrive in millimetres and presentation sets are laid out on A1 and A3. Nothing needs converting on the way in or out.

Questions

Does a resource consent application have to include a visual simulation?

Not by name. Schedule 4 sets out the matters an assessment of environmental effects must address, landscape and visual effects among them, so how you evidence that is a judgement your planner and landscape architect make about the site. Kallo produces images to the brief they set, and does not advise on whether an application needs one.

Can you work to the views our landscape architect has specified?

Yes. Share the viewpoint brief agreed by your landscape architect, together with the supporting site information and required presentation format. We confirm the scope with your team before work begins; your consultant remains responsible for selecting and assessing those views.

Our design is still at concept stage. Is it too early to discuss images?

An early concept can be enough for an initial discussion. Explain which parts of the design are settled and which remain open, and share the drawings you have. The proposal will identify any further information needed for the images you want.

The planning statutes are changing. Will the images still be usable afterwards?

That depends on whether the design and the purpose of the images still match the new requirements. Ask your planner to confirm the material needed for any later submission. We can discuss an update once your team has identified what has changed.

What we checked, September 2026

This page names the bodies and the checks rather than quoting rules, because rules change. It is background for planning a set of images, not planning advice. Your project team stays responsible for what is lodged.

Other areas

Tell us about your project.

Tell us what you are planning, who the images are for and when you need them. We will discuss the right views and film for the project, then prepare a tailored proposal.

Discuss your project

Already know what you need? Send a project brief.

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