--- title: "Michael Hsu Office of Architecture Case Study | Gendo" description: "How Michael Hsu Office of Architecture uses fast, high-fidelity visualisation as design feedback across mixed-use and public realm work, with multiple com…" 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://gendo.ai/app/sign-in)[Start creating ](https://gendo.ai/app/sign-up) [Back to Resources](/resources) Story # An 80-Person Practice Treats Gendo as a Design Tool, Not a Renderer How Michael Hsu Office of Architecture uses fast, high-fidelity visualisation as design feedback across mixed-use and public realm work, with multiple competition wins to show for it. 80 people Architecture and interiors practice Multiple Competition wins since adopting Gendo Iteration Speed on complex projects, not just output ![Michael Hsu Office of Architecture project rendered with Gendo](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/michael-hsu-hero.jpg) ![Michael Hsu Office of Architecture](https://assets.gendo.ai/marketing/michael-hsu-logo.png) About the practice ## Michael Hsu Office of Architecture Team Size 80 people Discipline Mixed-use, public realm, broad project range Toolchain SketchUp, Revit, Gendo Used at All stages, from early design through presentation Michael Hsu Office of Architecture is an 80-person practice working across a broad range of project types, with a significant body of mixed-use and public realm architecture. The studio works in SketchUp to Revit, or Revit only, with Gendo now used across the board rather than at a single stage. > "It's a design tool, not a visualization tool." > > — Matt Kohman The challenge ## Renderings that arrived too late to inform the design Before Gendo, reaching realistic fidelity was slow, and changing anything once you got there was slower still. That meant a meaningful percentage of design time went into producing imagery that could not be used as design feedback. By the time a view was finished, the decision it might have informed had usually already been made. The solution ## Fidelity fast enough to feed back into the design Matt Kohman found Gendo through Ismail's Instagram and trialled it inside live work. The distinction he draws is not about image quality, which he rates alongside high-end outsourced visualisation, but about when the image arrives: early enough, and at enough fidelity, to change what gets designed next. "The ability to visualise quickly and collaboratively at high fidelity makes it a powerful tool for design. This is not only a visualisation tool." Matt Kohman, Lead Designer Workflow ## Testing ideas at the speed they occur On complex projects the gain is iteration speed. Ideas can be tested visually while they are still open questions, rather than committed to and then illustrated. Gendo is used across the board in the studio's process, which for an 80-person practice means it sits inside the standard SketchUp to Revit route rather than beside it. > "All across the board. It is a key tool for me now." Adoption ## Powerful, and deliberately non-linear The team's read on the tool is honest: interesting and powerful, but non-linear and challenging to control at first. That is the trade for working at design speed rather than production speed. The practice does not typically show optionality to clients, so the exploration is primarily internal, used to mature the design before anything is presented. ## The Impact: Design time returned to design Visualisation stopped being a downstream cost and became part of how the studio arrives at the scheme. Impact ## Key Outcomes Competition wins Multiple wins since Gendo entered the process Faster iteration Ideas tested visually on complex projects Design time recovered Less of it spent producing unusable imagery Better presentation images Quality on par with high-end outsourced work Feedback ## Held against an outsourced benchmark The studio measures the output against the high-end visualisation it would otherwise commission, and the response has been positive on that basis. Because optionality is kept internal, the client-facing change is simply better images, with the design maturation happening before the presentation rather than during it. > "The ability to visualise quickly and collaboratively at high fidelity makes it a powerful tool for design. This is not only a visualisation tool." 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