From Hours to Minutes: Cascadia Architects Streamline Rendering with Gendo

About Cascadia Architects

Founded in 2012 in Victoria, Canada, Cascadia Architects is led by Principals Peter Johannknecht and Gregory Damant. The practice has become known for award-winning work across large-scale residential and commercial projects, private custom homes, healthcare, education, and cultural spaces.

At the heart of Cascadia’s philosophy is community. The studio collaborates closely with clients, stakeholders, and local partners to create functional, sustainable spaces that connect people to place and elevate daily life.

Meet Bianca Pepler

Bianca joined Cascadia in 2023, after completing her Interior Design diploma, eager to work in an architectural context rather than a purely interiors-focused studio. Since then, she’s contributed to everything from multi-family developments and healthcare facilities to custom homes. She also supports the architectural team with permit drawings and community presentations.

Beyond design work, Bianca manages Cascadia’s social media and has developed internal standards for rendering and presentation where her exploration of AI tools like Gendo has helped shape new workflows.

I knew I wanted to work at an architectural firm, where I could engage with the design of entire buildings. Gendo has become an important part of how I bridge architectural and interior design workflows.

Visualisation Before Gendo

Cascadia’s typical workflow begins with modeling in Revit and accurately assigning materials and context prior to rendering in Enscape. Once the model is complete, they establish key views—often referencing on-site photographs to ensure accuracy and contextual alignment. Then they render the images and develop them further in Photoshop, applying multiple layers to refine detail and atmosphere.

To streamline this process, they export vector and color masks from Enscape, which facilitate precise selections when building layers in Photoshop.

We invest significant effort in creating layered masks for glazing, siding, and street frontage; however, as the building massing or fenestration changes, updating these layers becomes a particularly time-intensive task.

Discovering Gendo

Bianca first applied Gendo to a hotel project at the schematic stage. The Revit model had glazing and basic form but no context or materials. Instead of fully modelling the site, Bianca used Google Earth screenshots combined with Gendo to quickly generate urban background imagery.

After a few iterations, Gendo produced atmospheric visuals that could be composited in Photoshop with Enscape renderings, ultimately saving hours of context-building work.

The final result exceeded our expectations, providing a clear visualisation of the building within its urban context.

Bianca has since used Gendo to enhance glazing, refine lighting, and unify compositions for both early-stage and more polished presentation imagery.

Before Gendo

A basic Enscape rendering with minimal context, flat lighting, and limited atmosphere before enhancement in Gendo.

With Gendo

A rendering enhanced with Gendo, featuring realistic glazing, balanced lighting, and atmospheric context. The building is shown seamlessly integrated into its surroundings, creating a polished, presentation-ready visual.

Impact on Workflow

With Gendo, Cascadia has seen clear efficiency gains:

✅ Several hours saved per image on glazing, reflections, and layering.
✅ Faster early-stage visuals, particularly for context integration.
✅ More atmospheric renderings, reducing post-production touch-ups.

Bianca has developed an iterative workflow that combines Gendo and Photoshop to achieve consistently strong results.

Even when an image requires multiple passes, once Gendo brings it to the right level, the need for further touch-ups is minimal.

Client & Team Response

Clients have responded positively to Gendo enhanced renderings, appreciating the clarity and atmosphere they bring. Within the Cascadia team, Gendo has sparked enthusiasm, particularly for its ability to generate lighting and mood quickly.

We recognize how valuable realistic rendering is in helping clients visualize spaces, particularly during the early decision-making process. Incorporating realistic atmospheric conditions through Gendo allows for more lifelike imagery, which has proven helpful for client visualization.

Clients frequently commented that the Gendo-enhanced images “felt real” or “looked like a photo,” making it easier for them to imagine themselves in the finished spaces. This earlier emotional buy-in often translated directly into faster sign-offs and more decisive feedback.

Looking Ahead

For now, Gendo is helping Cascadia move faster and with more flexibility, especially at early stages of design.

Closing Thoughts

“I would absolutely encourage other designers and studios to give Gendo a try. It’s a powerful tool, and the more you use it, the easier it is to integrate into your workflow. Even enhancing images that are already nearly complete in Photoshop can save time and elevate the result.”

Start for free with Gendo.