Turning intricate ideas into understanding: Agora Architects’ Wilderness project
How the firm uses visualization to build clear communication and move projects forward
The WildernessGreat design begins with shared understanding. When clients, planners, and community stakeholders can clearly see a vision taking shape, decisions come with greater confidence. Introducing 3D visualization early helps remove uncertainty and ensures everyone trusts exactly what a proposed design will become.
Agora Architects experienced this on The Wilderness project.
Led by Ashley Broughton alongside Oliver Serek and the wider team, Agora made rich, realistic 3D visuals a central part of both their design thinking and communication. This helped align expectations and build confidence throughout the planning process, ultimately contributing to council approval, where Lumion Pro’s detailed, context-aware renderings were credited as a deciding factor.
The Wilderness project demonstrates how powerful visualization can support communication and trust in architectural design.
Ashley Broughton
Principal, Agora Architects
In many ways, our workflow has actually been shaped around Lumion Pro rather than the other way round. We’ve adapted to take advantage of the software—it’s not a bolt-on. It’s fundamental to how we work.
The Wilderness
The project brief was shaped by Mr. and Mrs. Cooper’s decision to downsize for the next chapter of their lives, while remaining on the land they loved. What they brought to the table was a clear set of values—privacy, sustainability, and a meaningful connection to the landscape—alongside the realities of designing on a heritage asset. Agora Architects responded to those values with a bold yet carefully considered approach, shaping a fully subterranean home that met council requirements while opening up a new way for the Coopers to live on their land.
Originally expected to take 12–18 months, the project stretched to over three years due to planning challenges, a council appeal, and the sale of their existing home. Despite rising costs and the unconventional design, the Coopers remained committed, excited by Agora Architects’ collaborative approach and eager to see the vision realized.
From the outset, the project faced significant planning challenges—and the risk of refusal was high. The Coopers dreamed of a home that was private, sustainable, and fully integrated into the landscape. Yet achieving that vision meant designing a house that was almost entirely hidden, situated at the base of a hill near a sensitive heritage asset. The planning council faced uncertainty: with only one visible elevation, it was nearly impossible to assess the home’s scale, its impact on protected views, or how it respected the historic context.
Mr. and Mrs. Cooper were deeply invested in realizing their dream, but the ambiguity surrounding council approval made the process an emotional rollercoaster.
Traditional drawings and standard plans could not convey the material richness at the heart of the design—how carefully considered textures and finishes allowed the home to blend naturally into the landscape while honoring and preserving the heritage context.
Rather than push back, Agora listened and let a clear set of guiding principles drive the design decisions:
Invisibility: Ensuring the home remained unobtrusive within the landscape and preserved views of the heritage asset.
Daylight: Maximizing natural light deep into the subterranean structure, creating a vibrant and inviting interior.
Environmental integration: Using materials, massing, and landscaping to harmonize the home with its surroundings.
Emotional reassurance: Providing the clients and planners with a clear, compelling visualization of the home’s impact and experience.
These principles enabled Ashley, Oliver, and the team to work closely with Mr. and Mrs. Cooper to refine the brief, ultimately delivering the concept of a fully sunken, landscape-driven “Teletubby home”—a design rooted in their desire for privacy, sustainability, and harmony with the site. Through empathy, the team translated the clients’ vision into design decisions that reflected their values while satisfying the council’s requirements.
To demonstrate that the design would preserve views of the historic building, the team relied on Lumion Pro to produce photo-matched CGIs and animations for a robust visual impact assessment. These renders made it clear that the council’s primary concern—the visibility of the new home—would be mitigated entirely by the surrounding terrain and vegetation.
From there, Lumion Pro became central to addressing the technical challenges of the design, particularly natural light. Its modeling environment allowed the team to test daylight penetration deep into the structure, refine the massing, and develop the home’s defining feature: a dramatic two-story light core that brings daylight, ventilation, and hydroponics into the heart of the building.
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A visual-first workflow
How Lumion Pro fits into Agora’s process
Agora’s practice prioritizes visual clarity from the very beginning of any project. The firm’s workflow starts with a full 3D site survey, forming the foundation of a unified SketchUp model. That model is then brought into Lumion Pro, where the team applies materials, generates orthographic views, and builds context-rich visuals that make design intent immediately understandable for both clients and planners.
For Ashley, this integration is foundational rather than optional:
“In many ways, our workflow has actually been shaped around Lumion Pro rather than the other way round. We’ve adapted to take advantage of the software—it’s not a bolt-on. It’s fundamental to how we work.”
As projects progress, Lumion Pro drives detailed renders and photorealistic imagery, while also helping the technical team resolve construction elements that are difficult to communicate through traditional drawings.
Oliver echoes this perspective, highlighting how the software supports clarity and realism across projects:
“The landscape and vegetation tools are huge for us. Being able to quickly build context—trees, planting, people—makes the design instantly understandable. The orthographic views and export tools also help us produce clean overlays and visuals that planners and clients can grasp right away.”
This clarity carries through to client presentations. Alongside the refined core proposal, the team often introduces a “wild card” concept—an unexpected design direction that pushes the brief further. Clients choose this alternative 60–70% of the time, largely because Lumion makes ideas tangible and understandable in ways they may never have envisioned on their own. According to Ashley, these presentations can be deeply emotional, sometimes even bringing clients to tears, as the imagery allows them to fully experience the potential of their future home.
The output from Lumion also serves as a shared language between clients, planners, and stakeholders. Photo-matched renders, animations, and visual impact assessments remove ambiguity, enabling councils to make confident decisions while giving clients reassurance that their vision will be realized. Walkthroughs with clients turn abstract proposals into lived experiences—demonstrating the difference between explaining a design and experiencing it.
Oliver Serek
Head of Operations, Agora Architects
Alongside it, we’ve tried various alternatives over the years, just to see how they compare. We find that Lumion Pro gives us everything we need at any stage. It just makes it easier to work with, and that’s why it’s our preferred software.
The Caster
Experience matters
Trust, confidence, and a long-term relationship with Lumion
Ashley has been a long-time and deeply experienced Lumion user, and his first major encounter with the software set the tone for everything that followed. Early in his career, Lumion was used for an investment presentation for a large shopping center, producing an immersive video complete with environmental context, people, and detailed elements like water fountains—something traditional tools couldn’t match. The impact was immediate: investors requested Lumion created content for all future presentations, establishing it as a trusted tool for high-stakes scenarios.
Since then, Ashley has carried this appreciation into his nine years at Agora, where Lumion Pro remains central to the practice. Features like seasonality—showing winter conditions, bare trees, and reduced foliage—have become essential for visual impact assessments, particularly on rural and sensitive sites.
Oliver Serek emphasizes the software’s professional consistency:
“Alongside it, we’ve tried various alternatives over the years, just to see how they compare. We find that Lumion gives us everything we need at any stage. It just makes it easier to work with, and that’s why it’s our preferred software.”
For both Ashley and Oliver, Lumion Pro is more than a rendering tool—it’s a storytelling engine that brings their ideas to life with depth, nuance, and efficiency, enabling them to communicate confidently and deliver results even in the most sensitive, high-stakes projects.
From the very first drawings Ashley produced, we were completely taken by the design—you’re on such a high. Then you speak to the council and it feels like a setback, and the emotions swing back and forth. But we never gave up, and in the end we got there. We’re incredibly happy with where it’s landed.
— Mrs. Cooper
The Wilderness
Throughout the process, Agora guided Mr. and Mrs. Cooper with understanding and patience, helping them balance sustainability goals—such as creating a mostly off-grid home—with the realities of designing underground. Ashley guided the Coopers through the evolving model in real time, using immersive Lumion Pro visuals that were instrumental in securing final approval and giving the clients confidence in the home they were creating. This allowed them to experience the design as a lived space—from the tree-filled light core and wraparound staircase to reflection pools designed to draw sunlight deep into the interior.
Agora’s work proves how powerful clear communication and thoughtful visualization can be. By pairing Lumion Pro’s capabilities with a client-focused approach, they turn complex ideas into shared understanding and help even the most ambitious designs move forward with confidence.
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