--- title: "MCAU Case Study | Gendo" description: "Accelerating Urban Design Workflows with AI-Powered Rendering" lang: en json-ld: --- [![Gendo](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/homepage/gendo-logo-white.png)](/) [Features](/product)[Solutions](/workflows)[Resources](/resources)[Pricing](/pricing) About [Log In](https://app.gendo.ai/sign-in)[Start creating ](https://app.gendo.ai/sign-up) [Back to Resources](/resources) Story # From Weeks to Hours: MCAU Brings Urban Visions to Life with Gendo Accelerating Urban Design Workflows with AI-Powered Rendering Weeks → Hours Workflow speed 20-30s Per iteration Reduced Costs ![MCAU project rendered with Gendo](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/mcau-after-gendo.webp) [![MCAU](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/mcau-logo.png)](https://mcau.co.uk) About the practice ## MCAU Team Size 50+ Location United Kingdom Focus Urban Design, Masterplanning Approach AI-enhanced workflows MCAU is a team of designers, planners, architects, researchers and strategists united by a shared purpose: to create extraordinary, sustainable places that inspire and elevate communities. We work across a variety of services and sectors offering: Design & Delivery, Placemaking, Masterplanning, Residential, Estate Renewal, Town Centre Mixed Use, Heritage Repurposing and Commercial. [Visit MCAU ](https://mcau.co.uk) > "At the urban design level, visuals can sometimes be quite diagrammatic. Gendo helps us bridge that gap, showing clients and communities a vision they can immediately relate to." > > — Liam Cox ![Liam Cox](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/liam-cox.jpg) The voice behind this story ### Meet Liam Cox Urban Designer > "We're still in the early stages, but already Gendo has changed how we work. For street-level visions, it's helping us sell ideas quicker, more clearly, and at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods." The challenge ## Time-Intensive Visualisation Bottlenecks Traditionally Liam has relied on Sketchup for white-card models and developed renders in house or through external consultants. While this approach has delivered quality results, it also introduces significant bottlenecks to the workflow process. Street level images can take a week or more to come back from visualisations team, and often require additional time for comments to be picked up, slowing down the design process. Liam was looking for a way to introduce aspirational and realistic vision images in his and MCAU's early workflows to allow stakeholders to make the leap between how urban level schematic drawing and principles could translate into a real world vision. The solution ## Discovering Gendo's Potential Liam first started using Gendo to explore its potential on a small infill site project. Starting from SketchUp massing, he used Gendo's Render, Material Selection and Enhance tool to quickly build up a realistic image of what the site could potentially offer. "Each iteration takes 20–30 seconds. In just a couple of hours, we can develop images that used to take weeks and cost significantly more." Instead of commissioning high cost and time hungry render packages, Liam was able to apply prompts for red brick, metal cladding, hard and soft street landscaping and atmospheric lighting, and experiment with varying iterations in minutes. Transformation ## Before & After Drag to compare the transformation ![Gendo Enhanced](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/mcau-after-gendo.webp) Gendo Enhanced ![SketchUp Massing](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/mcau-before-gendo.webp) SketchUp Massing Drag to compare ## The Impact: Transforming Urban Design Workflows Liam is championing the use of Gendo within the early stage workflow process at MCAU. It has helped him with fast decision making, client-ready visuals, and reduced costs. Impact ## Key Outcomes Fast decision making Images that previously took weeks can be done in a fraction of the time Client ready visuals Stakeholders can make the link between urban design principles and transformative effects through aspirational vision imagery Reduced costs The potential to generate higher quality renders in house > "We're still in the early stages, but already Gendo has changed how we work. For street-level visions, it's helping us sell ideas quicker, more clearly, and at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods." Liam Cox Urban Designer, MCAU ## More Stories [View all](/resources/stories) [ ![SAQALA.STUDIO](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/saqala-plaza-after.jpg) ### The Canvas Became the Studio's Shared Office Read story ](/resources/stories/saqala-studio) [ ![Settle](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/settle-hero.jpg) ### Settle: An Entire Project Stage, Visualised in Gendo Read story ](/resources/stories/settle) [Gendo ](#) A living canvas for visual exploration, iteration, and decision-making. ### Product - [Product](/product) - [Pricing](/pricing) - [FAQs](/faqs) ### Company - [About Us](/about-us) - [Career](/career) - [Environmental Statement](/about/environmental-statement) - [Blog](/resources/insights) - [Contact Us](/book-call) ### Connect - [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/company/gendo-ai) - [Instagram](https://instagram.com/gendo.ai) - [YouTube](https://youtube.com/@Gendo-ai) © 2026 Gendo. All rights reserved. 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