Atelier Replica focuses on visual communication of architectural projects through rendered illustrations. It’s our core ambition to provoke personal and meaningful relationships between image and viewer. Atelier Replica makes both commissioned and independently made images. The practice of making images has naturally evolved into theoretical interest in semiotics, history, politics and cultural implications of a rapidly growing digital culture of imagery in the field of architecture.

There is a fundamental relationship between people and images. This natural language communicates ideas to illiterate people who for a multitude of reasons didn’t have a chance to learn how to read. After the body language, it is the second form of expressing emotions by children. It’s the language we don’t learn. It’s something we discover as an inseparable part of what makes us human. However, at the same time, images are an incredibly confusing construct. What is an image? Where is an image? Is the image of the pipe the same thing as the pipe, according to Magritte’s painting? Is an image an external object we experience, or is the image an internalized projection as in the concept of the Cartesian Theatre? Even simple emojis are charged with second meanings as a result of their geocultural existence. The beauty of their complexity and constant dwelling between the primitive and the intellectual is a source of inspiration for Atelier Replica.

Atelier Replica believes that images transcend the possibility of representing architectural projects and are a powerful design tool, especially in the case of both digital and manual collages. Images are intimately related to the creative and intellectual process of conceiving architecture and therefore cannot be considered the subsequent portrayal of a certain order set throughout that process. The collage is the raw and pure form of subjectivity of experiencing space through visual perception. It distils the scene to an arrangement of objects and its spatial relation. Visual perspective de-constructs the architectural plan and creates a new order. We believe that images help to not just understand but also create this relation. We believe that if visualizers could be engaged all the way throughout the creative process, the projects would benefit from it to a large extent.

With replica being a version of an architectural model, it has capacity to hold a set of unique added values in relation to its original. This margin of added value is where Atelier finds most of the potential and so that is it where it operates. Atelier uses feelings, emotions and visual associations to explore and deepen the potential of the scene. The latter taps into the semiotic study of signifier and signified, where behind every representation of the physical object there is a hidden meaning and specific connotation. This consciously and meticulously knitted set of meanings is what makes an atmosphere and what constructs the feeling of an image. Those hidden narratives help us to relate to an image on an emotional and personal level.

We believe that images, besides being an extension of the project, are also independent objects that tell the tales of the places in which we live, work and play. We want the images to look brilliant both on competition boards on the wall as well as in your living room or gallery.