The Edge: Matus Nedecky’s Flying Architecture

Matus Nedecky: Hi all! So first of all, let me thank Aurora Meneghello for giving me this opportunity to be interviewed by Novedge. It's an honor!
My name is Matus Nedecky, I am originally from the small Slovak village of Zelenec. When I finished my high school in a nearby city, I started to attend the BUT – Faculty of Architecture in the Czech Republic. After gaining experience in three architecture firms (full-time during my studies), I decided to go my own way and become an architectural visualizer. There's still a long way to go, even if I have reached some milestones already, which can be seen on our studio's website.

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Forest house – project postproduction breakdowns from FlyingArchitecture on Vimeo.

Novedge: How did Flying Architecture start? And how has it evolved?

Matus Nedecky:FlyingArchitecture started as a simple blog back in summer 2009. As I started to work in Rhinoceros 4, and I was working on some basic commercial visualizations, I needed to use the same 3D assets over and over again. Unfortunately, there was no website dedicated to Rhino assets at that time, the only package you could get was McNeel's Savanna3D… and I thought I could do better. So I started producing my work. First I created fifty 3D models in Rhinoceros and then I published the website on social media. Leo Bonilla, a great guy from Colombia, and Rendy Himawan, a designer from Jakarta, contacted me right away. These two (and many others afterwards) gave me great support, they shared my passion for this project and they also shared some of their 3D models. And this is where it all started

Then many people from all over the world started to share their own 3D models, and FlyingArchitecture grew rapidly.

I believe if one does something with passion, he will undoubtedly do a great job. And I can proudly say I loved doing this! It was and still is such a great feeling seeing all our own models and our fan's in visualizations all over the world (I have seen some models in visualizations by BIG)… it's an honor to serve thousands of people and to offer them something they need.

Well, free 3D models were just the beginning… since 2009 I also added other features, like the forum, materials and tutorials. Besides the website itself, I also work on architectural visualizations for commercial clients.

Then on December 28, 2009 everything changed. That's when I first talked to Veronika Nedecka, when she was an interior design student (now my wife and the mother of our child) – since we knew each other, we also started to work together, so our professional services went much more pro! Thanks to our images, which were getting better and better, we were offered to teach a workshop on architectural visualization in Barcelona, Spain, and we accepted. Since then, we led workshops in Barcelona, Vienna, Rome and some personal courses in Bratislava. Now we're are planning some more events, so if you are interested… stay tuned!

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Advanced Vienna workshop 2013 from FlyingArchitecture on Vimeo.

I can't forget to mention that our new online store with 3D models is the first marketplace where Rhinoceros users can get truly realistic, high quality, 3D models ready for use in their 3D scenes. Take a look here.
Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of having your own business?
Matus Nedecky:It's not really a walk in the park…. But of course it has many more pros than cons. However you are responsible for everything – you have to care of PR, marketing, the job itself, bookkeeping, etc. There is so much to think about, that it may sometimes seem unbearable. Just don't give up! Even if you think it's not worthwhile and sometimes it is a struggle, there are always better days coming For me, better days came with Veronika and my co-workers, Lukas [Filip, interviewed here] and Fabio.

The biggest challenge is time management: it's extremely hard to balance it all – work, family, free time, eventually school and also other projects.The biggest reward for me since I started to work alone has been the lack of stress. I have to admit, I work longer hours than before, but I do not have someone standing behind my back checking what I am doing. Oh and also as an artist I have the opportunity to express myself, my own style and feelings, not just the opinions and style of my team leader… That's the biggest satisfaction!

Novedge: What surprised you the most?

Matus Nedecky:Well, I'd say it's the positive feedback! I started working on the FlyingArchitecture website just for fun, and to create something that I needed. You should see the mass of positive feedback I received, it's such a great feeling to receive hundreds of emails that say "Thank you"… That was the best award I could ever get So Thank You all, who supported me and who said Thank You… You gave me new energy to continue.

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

Recently at the FlyingArchitecture studio we are working on tens of residential/commercial buildings for our clients… mostly new buildings for commerce or flat units. From time to time we also have a great opportunity to work on something very specific, like museum designs, firemen stations, hotels and so on.

What I appreciate the most are personal projects. At the moment, I am running about 5 of them, but I can show you some I finished recently. It is very important for me to take a break from commercial work (for most of them we sign an NDA, so they cannot be published) and to create something in my own style with a touch of artistic feeling.

This is the Norwegian house, design and visualizations by FlyingArchitecture:

Aluminium house, some romantic idea of where I'd love to live:

 

FlyingArchitecture, our future office design. We jut have to wait a bit for the technology to catch up

Novedge: What software do you use?

Matus Nedecky:Haha, that's a long and painful story… At university, they taught us how to use 3ds Max, but I gave a try to Cinema 4D, Blender, Modo, SketchUp and Rhino. I have to say that polygons just aren't my blood type. That's why I was so amazed by the NURBS technology in Rhinoceros, which I chose as my primary 3D software.
Since then, I use it on a daily basis. It worked great in college for all architectural drawings and also for 3D modeling and rendering. Its stability and extraordinary user-friendliness just amaze me. And that's why I stick with it

Besides Rhinoceros, I use V-Ray for Rhino and Photoshop. The combination of these software solutions give us extreme flexibility to finish all daily tasks in a very effective way and within reasonable time.
Novedge: What makes a good render extraordinary?

Matus Nedecky:The most important thing is to be original. That's why I try to keep Rhino as our primary 3D software in FlyingArchitecture. The worst thing that can happen is that  somebody starts to take shortcuts and just mindlessly copy and paste assets to their 3D scenes. There are tons of CGI artists working like this these days… So the direction we are taking is to use custom 3D models and our own photos for exterior postproduction, so we stay original all the time.

Generally speaking, it's always up to the artist, everybody has a different point of view. There is an artist in all of us, we just have to release him Don't just copy… create!

Novedge: What are your plans for the future?

Matus Nedecky:I always have big plans! I would need several lifetimes to accomplish them all… Of course, there are some particular plans for FlyingArchitecture, mostly regarding the website itself, so we can get bigger and better with our free 3D models database. I'll have more news soon, so stay tuned! And of course, we are doing our best to offer better visualizations to our clients every day. You can check our current visualization portfolio here.

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