Of all the support branches of design, the ones specializing in visualization have to be the sexiest. One such outfit in Bergen, Norway, has a simple mission: "Mir is a creative studio," they write, "that specialises in portraying unbuilt architecture."

Done for SOM - Beijing/China

While their field surely has a unique set of challenges, to produce the renderings for a design without having to deal with realtors/fabricators/construction teams must bring a particular kind of joy; you get to realize all of the cool stuff, without the real-world headaches. Not to mention they get to work with international architecture firms like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Zaha Hadid, Snøhetta, KPF, Gensler and more.

Their work might have them visualizing a building complex in the Nordic countryside:

Done for White - Lund/Sverige

A study facility in Saudi Arabia's Mecca:

Done for Snøhetta - Mekka/Saudi Arabia

A staircase for Zaha Hadid:

Done for Zaha Hadid - Sharjah/UAE

A modernist monolith in South Korea:

Done for KPF - Daegu/Korea

Part of the Hudson Yards project in New York City:

Done for KPF - New York/USA

Or this thing, which…tell you the truth I have no idea what the hell it is or what it does, but apparently it was designed by Gensler NY, though it is not listed as a project on their website:

Done for Gensler NY - Wasteland City/Wasteland

Done for Gensler NY - Wasteland City/Wasteland

My favorite shot on Mir's site is this rendering of the dining area for a Swiss resort:

Done for Jensen & Skodvin - Vals/Switzerland

That's my favorite not for the beauty of the image, but because as a former waiter prone to bouts of clumsiness, I can picture the event leading to me being fired from this restaurant:

As I carry a tray of martinis to the table at front left, I lose my footing on the slope, fall on my ass, slide into their table with my legs spread, and my crotch slams directly into a table leg. Of the two martini glasses hurled aloft by the incident, one shatters on the table while the other crashes into the back of the head of the person sitting on the stool at right.