St Julian’s Court
A Project By: Studio ArchViz
Location: Shoscombe, near Bath, UK
Project Summary:
St Julian’s Court is an exclusive development of four unique 4 bedroom homes in the village of Shoscombe, near Bath. Studio ArchViz created the complete off-plan marketing campaign — six exterior CGIs, five interior CGIs, a marketing animation, sales brochure and site hoardings — selling homes to buyers before a single brick is laid, supporting decision‑making across the built environment.
Project Detail:
Selling off-plan is one of the hardest jobs in property. You’re asking buyers to commit serious money to something they can’t walk around, can’t touch, and can’t photograph. Every question they’d normally answer with their own eyes — What will it feel like? Where does the light fall? Could I live here? — has to be answered by the marketing instead. That was the brief for St Julian’s Court, a development contributing to the built environment in Shoscombe.
Developer Nick Macdonald-Buchanan, founder of Woolavington Homes, appointed Studio ArchViz to produce the complete visual campaign for the development: six exterior CGIs, five interior CGIs, a marketing animation, the sales brochure and the site hoardings. With ground only just broken, these assets are doing the job the finished homes can’t yet do for themselves — carrying the scheme from launch with estate agents Cobb Farr right through to completion, a crucial step in shaping the built environment.
Working from DMW Architects’ drawings, we modelled the four homes faithfully, using local stone, wood cladding and natural slate roofs, with a striking metal-clad elevation and roof to Plot 1. We then made deliberate choices about the time of day, season and light to show the architecture at its most honest and most appealing. Warm, low sun across the stonework, established planting rather than the bare lawns you see in so much off-plan imagery, and viewpoints chosen the way a buyer would actually approach the site. The aim is always the same: an image that feels like a photograph of a place that already exists. We worked closely with a photographer, Dave Mallet, to capture the site from the ground and air to use within our imagery to show the buildings in situ as realistically as possible.
The five interiors had a different job to do. Exteriors sell the address; interiors sell the life. St Julian’s Court is aimed at couples in their forties, fifties and sixties looking to trade the city for the countryside without giving up city life completely as Bath is only a fifteen minutes drive away. The interiors were styled for exactly that buyer: wood-effect tiled floors, a calm and confident palette, dark wood kitchen island and dressings that appeals to the buyer rather than a generic showhome. The sustainability story runs quietly through the imagery too — triple-glazed windows, solar panels and air source heat pumps are a genuine part of the appeal for this audience, and the visuals let those credentials show without shouting about them.
The animation ties the whole campaign together. Stills convince; movement seduces. The film gives Cobb Farr an asset that works everywhere static imagery can’t — social media, email campaigns and agent presentations — and in our experience it’s often the animation that turns a casual enquiry into a booked appointment. The brochure and site hoardings complete the picture: the brochure gives serious buyers something considered to take away and return to, while the hoardings direct potential buyers to the CGIs and brochure on the website, turning a muddy field into a preview of what’s coming for everyone who drives past.
After more than twenty years in architectural visualisation, I’ve learned that the best CGI work isn’t really about the images at all. It’s about commercial outcomes — planning approvals won, funding secured, homes reserved off-plan months earlier than they otherwise would be. Every decision on St Julian’s Court, from camera angles to the length of the animation, was made with that in mind. The early signs are exactly what you want to hear: Cobb Farr described the CGIs and brochure as really impressive, and expect them to accelerate sales.
Construction at St Julian’s Court is now underway, and the campaign is doing precisely what it was designed to do — letting buyers fall in love with four homes that don’t yet exist, while contributing meaningfully to the built environment.
Studio ArchViz creates high-impact visualisations that drive commercial decisions, sales and investment.
