Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park CGI

This case study is published under StratumCGI's anonymisation policy because the clients do not wish to be publicly named. Client name, scheme name, exact location, and precise gross internal area have been altered or removed. The visualisation reflects the typology of the underlying brief.

Six CGI Views

Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park CGI (SCGI-001) hero view showing the office block curtain walling, main entrance, and primary Grade A warehouse, by StratumCGI — **Entrance Hero**Office curtain wall, main entrance, and primary distribution warehouse under UK overcast light.

Aerial context CGI of the Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park showing both Grade A warehouse units, service yard, rooftop PV array, and landscape bunds, by StratumCGI — **Aerial Context**Drone-tilt view placing both Grade A units inside the Golden Triangle landscape corridor.

Service yard CGI showing reverse-docked articulated HGVs at the loading dock with hydraulic dock levellers, hatched HGV marshalling, and crash barriers, by StratumCGI — **Service Yard and Loading Dock**Articulated HGVs reverse-docked at hydraulic dock levellers with hatched HGV marshalling lanes.

Pedestrian entrance CGI of the Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park showing the office block, gatehouse, tactile paving, staff parking, and landscape planting, by StratumCGI — **Pedestrian Entrance**Office block, gatehouse, tactile paving, staff parking, and landscape planting at human scale.

Masterplan CGI top-down aerial of the Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park showing both Grade A units, service yard, PV array, and perimeter landscape bunds, by StratumCGI — **Site Masterplan**Top-down orthographic aerial of both Grade A units, service yard, PV array, and landscape bunds.

Facade detail CGI showing the charcoal plinth, ribbed RAL 7035 cladding, and curtain wall corner of the office block with entrance canopy, by StratumCGI — **Facade Material Junction**Charcoal plinth, ribbed cladding, curtain wall corner, and cantilevered entrance canopy.

Brief Us on a Big-Box Distribution Scheme

Project Overview

Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park CGI (SCGI-001) is an anonymised industrial architectural visualisation by StratumCGI for a UK Golden Triangle big-box distribution scheme. The six CGI views show the entrance hero, aerial context, service yard, pedestrian entrance, aerial masterplan, and facade detail used across planning visuals, pre-let marketing, investor review, and occupier presentation material. The scheme typology comprises two Grade A distribution units in the 60,000 to 90,000 m² range, designed to carry pallet racking, marshal HGVs, load high-bay goods, and stage supply chain operations at regional scale.

Who commissions this building type

Big-box distribution warehouses in the Golden Triangle are commissioned by specialist logistics developers and landlords including SEGRO, Prologis, GLP, Panattoni, Tritax, Mountpark, Clowes, IM Properties, and Verdion. Occupier demand is driven by national retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, M&S, Next, John Lewis, ASOS, Boohoo, Ocado, B&Q, Screwfix, and Lidl, and by international logistics and e-commerce operators including Amazon, DHL, DPD, FedEx, UPS, Maersk, Kuehne+Nagel, XPO Logistics, Wincanton, DSV, GXO, and Royal Mail. Big-box schemes of this scale are typically pre-let or leased to one or more of these operators during or shortly after planning.

Why the Golden Triangle

The UK Golden Triangle logistics region, bounded by the M1, M6, and M42 motorway corridors, is the country's densest concentration of Grade A distribution space. Buildings in this typology sit close to the junction of multiple motorways, carry HGV yard depths from 45 to 55 metres, clear internal heights from 12 to 18 metres to haunch, and BREEAM Excellent specification as the market standard (BCO Annual Review, JLL UK Big Shed Bulletin, Savills Big Shed Briefing Note).

Typology	Grade A big-box distribution
Units	Two Grade A warehouses, parallel layout
GIA range (typology)	60,000 to 90,000 m² combined
Clear height to haunch	12 to 18 metres (BCO 2024 median 15 m)
Yard depth (typology)	45 to 55 metres (Savills Big Shed Briefing)
Dock doors (typology)	30 to 60 per unit, cross-dock option
HGV marshalling (typology)	40 to 80 trailer bays
Car parking (typology)	1 space per 50 to 100 m² GIA
BREEAM target	Excellent (market standard)
EPC target	A or A+ (rooftop PV array)
Region	UK Golden Triangle (M1 / M6 / M42)
Reference	SCGI-001 (anonymised)

Estimated CGI Pricing for a Big-Box Warehouse Scheme

Big-box warehouse CGI in the UK typically costs between £1,100 and £2,700 per final CGI still for a Grade A distribution scheme with two warehouse units and a combined gross internal area between 60,000 and 90,000 square metres, delivered as a six-image still set. Underlying costs for 3D modelling, material and lighting setup, post-production, AVR Type 3 verified views, drone survey, and consultation animation are quoted separately and listed in the table below. The ranges shown are StratumCGI's published guide figures for any UK big-box warehouse scheme in this typology class, not the commercial terms paid on the SCGI-001 anonymised commission.

These are typology ranges, not the price paid on this specific commission. Commercial terms for SCGI-001 are withheld under our anonymisation policy.

Big-Box Warehouse CGI · Line Items

Final CGI still, planning or marketing ready	£1,100 to £2,700 per image
3D base modelling from the architects' CAD package	£2,800 to £6,500 per scheme
Material, lighting, and landscape setup	£1,400 to £3,200 per scheme
Post-production and grade pass	£180 to £420 per image
AVR Type 3 verified view uplift, Landscape Institute TGN 06/19	£600 to £1,200 per view
Drone survey planning and viewpoint capture	£900 to £2,400 per site visit
Consultation flythrough animation, 60 to 90 seconds	£6,500 to £14,500 per animation
Revision rounds beyond the first two	£220 to £480 per image per round
Planning portal formatting and delivery	Included with planning-spec packages

Typical six-image package, all in

£12,500 to £28,000

Range driven by modelling depth, number of AVR Type 3 verified views, and whether a consultation animation is included.

Cluster, sector, and scale drive where a scheme lands in the range. A cold storage facility, a hyperscale data centre, or an employment land masterplan will fall into different typology ranges. For a live big-box scheme we quote against the actual view list, the actual scheme drawings, and the actual timeline.

Request a Written Big-Box CGI Quote

Inside the Project: A Conversation with the Director

Industrial architectural visualisation of a big-box warehouse CGI masterplan for the UK Golden Triangle, two Grade A distribution units, V-Ray photoreal render by StratumCGI, director commentary image from SCGI-001 anonymised case study — Industrial architectural visualisation · Big-box warehouse CGI masterplan · SCGI-001 · StratumCGI

Director Interview

George Nicola

Founder and Director, StratumCGI

How did the client first approach StratumCGI for a big-box warehouse CGI commission?

StratumCGI was approached by the architects on the scheme with the two Grade A distribution units already drawn up and a view list in hand. They wanted a big-box warehouse CGI package that could serve planning submission and occupier marketing from the same set of CGI images.

We received the architects' drawings, the site plan, and a short brief over email. Two days later we were on a call with the architects and the developer walking the scheme end to end.

On that first call we agreed the deadlines, the image set that mattered most, and the sections of the building the developer wanted to lead on. The service yard and the office entrance were flagged early as the two most important compositions for the submission.

What did the big-box warehouse CGI brief cover?

The brief covered a six-image still set for the two-unit big-box scheme: a hero entrance view, an aerial context view, a service yard composition, a pedestrian human-scale view, a top-down masterplan, and a facade material close-up.

Each CGI view had a specific job to do. The hero view and the facade detail were for the occupier marketing pack. The aerial, the masterplan, and the service yard were written into the planning submission. The pedestrian view was for the public consultation boards.

Everything had to match the architects' drawings exactly, because the imagery was going into a planning application where every dimension and every material specification has to stand up to scrutiny.

How did StratumCGI build the 3D model of the big-box warehouse scheme?

StratumCGI rebuilt the scheme in our studio pipeline directly from the architects' CAD package. Both Grade A warehouse volumes, the office block, the gatehouse, the service yard, and the landscape bunding came in as clean reference geometry and we modelled up from there.

Over the top we layered the real material specification. The mid-grey RAL 7035 horizontal ribbed cladding, the charcoal RAL 7016 plinth, the anthracite curtain wall mullions on the office block, the dock leveller geometry, the rooftop PV array, and the yard furniture were all modelled as physical elements, not textures.

We also modelled the landscape. The hawthorn perimeter hedging, the silver birch and oak planting, the grass bunds, and the wet tarmac are real geometry and real shaders, not background dressing.

What was the most challenging part of this big-box CGI project?

The service yard was the most demanding composition on the whole scheme. A big-box warehouse lives or dies on whether the dock face and the marshalling lanes read as operationally correct to a logistics buyer.

We modelled the dock geometry from first principles. The roller shutter doors, the dock cushions, the hydraulic dock levellers, the hatched HGV marshalling lanes, the steel crash barriers, and every articulated HGV reverse-parked into the bays with the tractor unit coupled to the trailer.

The second challenge was holding the scheme together as a single visit. All six views had to share one overcast UK morning, one lighting setup, one palette, and one camera rig, so the gallery reads as one coherent project rather than six separate buildings.

How did StratumCGI solve those CGI challenges?

StratumCGI solved the service yard by modelling the dock geometry at architectural accuracy before any rendering began. Roller shutter doors, dock cushions, hydraulic levellers, and marshalling lanes were all built to real-world dimensions and cross-checked against the architects' setting-out drawings.

Every articulated HGV in the yard was placed and oriented by hand. Trailer rear faces flush to the dock cushion, tractor unit coupled through a proper fifth wheel, front cab pointing out into the yard exactly as a real driver would leave it before a handover.

For consistency across the six views we locked the camera rig and the lighting rig in one shared scene. The hero view was rendered first. Every subsequent render was derived from the same master lighting state, so the entire series carries the same time of day, the same sky, and the same material response.

The result is a gallery that reads as one visit to one real scheme, which is exactly what the architects and the developer wanted to put in front of the planning authority and the occupier agents.

What stages did the big-box warehouse CGI project move through?

The CGI project moved through five stages: briefing with the architects, 3D base modelling from the CAD package, materials and lighting setup, draft rendering with iteration rounds, and final delivery in planning and occupier marketing formats.

Stage one was the briefing call and the agreed view list. Stage two was base modelling from the architects' drawings with a full match to the site plan. Stage three was materials, lighting, landscape, and vehicle placement.

Stage four was draft rendering. The architects and the developer reviewed each CGI still and came back with notes on cladding tone, on a couple of vehicle positions, and on perimeter planting density. We iterated through a small number of revision rounds until the set was signed off.

Stage five was final delivery. A full set of stills and web-sized and print-ready versions for every channel the architects and the developer needed to publish into.

What do investors typically expect from a big-box warehouse scheme like this once it is delivered?

Investors in UK big-box logistics are underwriting against a fairly narrow set of numbers. For a Grade A distribution scheme of this typology, the market has sat around 4.75 to 5.5 percent prime net initial yield through 2024 and into 2025, with a rental tone in the £8 to £11 per square foot range depending on cluster, access, and specification. Those are the figures the investment committee and the letting agents are working back from when they write their part of the brief.

That means the CGI is not just a marketing output. It is part of the investment case. The marketing team uses the imagery to pre-position the scheme with occupiers, the letting agents use it to shorten the pre-let timeline, and the investment committee uses it to show the fund or the REIT what they are buying. A shorter pre-let timeline is directly tied to the yield on exit, because a pre-let asset prices tighter than a speculatively let one.

Developers we work with typically expect to see the imagery help compress the occupier pitch window by several weeks, and to land a pre-let earlier in the construction programme. The CGI connects the whole chain from the architect's drawing to the investor pitch to the signed lease, which is why every party briefs it differently and why every brief matters.

Briefs From the Project Team for the Golden Triangle Big-Box Warehouse CGI

A big-box warehouse CGI commission never arrives as a single brief. By the time StratumCGI is on the first call, the developer's marketing team, the investment committee, the letting agents, the architects, and the landscape engineers have each written their own version of what the imagery needs to do. On SCGI-001 every party put a scope on the table. The five briefs below are the versions StratumCGI reconciled into a single production pipeline for this Grade A Golden Triangle scheme.

Brief One · Developer Marketing Team

Marketing Team Brief for the Big-Box Warehouse CGI

Scope: LinkedIn banners, Facebook and Instagram paid ad crops, brochure spreads, print boards, and website hero images all cut from the same CGI renders.

The marketing team briefed a multi-format image set built around the six CGI renders, with every image pre-cut for the channels they actually publish into. One render, many crops, no retouching between channels.

The channel list they wanted covered:

LinkedIn: 1200 x 627 link preview for sponsored posts, 1128 x 191 LinkedIn company page banner, and 1080 x 1080 carousel tiles for organic posts.
Facebook and Instagram paid ads: 1200 x 628 landscape ad, 1080 x 1080 square ad, 1080 x 1350 portrait feed ad, and 1080 x 1920 story and reel full-bleed format.
Website hero and banners: 1920 x 900 desktop hero, 1200 x 600 tablet hero, and 16:9 mid-page section banner.
Email banners: 600 x 300 agent mailshot header and 1200 x 400 campaign header.
Brochure and printing: A4 portrait full-bleed spreads at 300 dpi, A3 landscape double-spread hero, and A2 consultation board crops for the public exhibition.
Publishing and press: 2000 x 1333 landscape press image and 1500 x 2000 portrait press image at 300 dpi, plus a 400 x 400 square thumbnail for editorial inventory listings.

They also asked for the palette to stay continuous with the rest of the developer's live Grade A portfolio. The RAL 7035 ribbed cladding, the RAL 7016 charcoal plinth, the anthracite mullions, and the landscape mitigation all had to match the visual grammar of the developer's other Golden Triangle schemes so the new asset would sit naturally next to them on a brochure spread or a LinkedIn inventory post.

Brief Two · Investment Committee

Investment Committee Brief for the Big-Box Warehouse CGI

Scope: Clean aerial and masterplan images that show the spec of the building, for the internal investment pack.

The investment committee wanted the straightforward stuff. Aerial and masterplan images that clearly show the two Grade A units, the service yard, the rooftop PV array, and the landscape mitigation, so the numbers in the investment pack line up with what is actually being delivered.

No dressing, no cinematic framing. Just imagery that matches the drawings and supports the spec sheet they circulate internally.

Brief Three · Letting Agents

Letting Agents Brief for the Big-Box Warehouse CGI

Scope: Service yard and pedestrian entrance images for a pre-let occupier pitch, plus multi-aspect crops for agency marketing channels.

The letting agents briefed an image set built for a pre-let occupier pitch, including a build-to-suit warehouse CGI for pre-let occupier packs to prove operational fit before lease signing. The service yard composition had to show correct reverse-docked HGV marshalling so a head of logistics could picture their own fleet in the yard, and the pedestrian entrance image had to show office spec at human scale so a visiting operator could imagine walking into the building.

They asked for a landscape crop of the hero render for agency email banners and a portrait crop for social and tile placements. The image set had to arrive production ready for the agency roll out, not as a design-stage study the marketing team would still have to retouch.

Brief Four · Project Architects

Architects Brief for the Big-Box Warehouse CGI

Scope: Facade material close-ups, curtain wall corner detail, and full massing images for the planning submission and design and access statement.

The architects briefed the technical set. The visual had to match the CAD package exactly: both Grade A volumes, the curtain wall office corner, the full dock face geometry, the RAL 7035 horizontal ribbed cladding, the RAL 7016 charcoal plinth, the anthracite window mullions, and the landscape bunding all rendered to the same tolerance as the drawings.

They also briefed the material close-ups for the design and access statement and the consultation boards for the public exhibition. The architects' brief is the one where the CGI has to survive the closest scrutiny, because any drift between render and drawing is caught immediately on a planning committee screen.

Brief Five · Landscape Engineers

Landscape Engineers Brief for the Big-Box Warehouse CGI

Scope: AVR Type 3 verified viewpoint set, perimeter planting, and cumulative landscape mitigation for the GLVIA3-aligned visual impact input.

The landscape engineers briefed the receptor set. They fixed the viewpoint matrix with StratumCGI and defined the lighting state, the time of year, and the foliage state the imagery needed to render under, so the views would pass muster as a GLVIA3-aligned visual impact input to the planning pack.

They also briefed the perimeter planting, the landscape bunds, and the hawthorn hedging at the cumulative scale a landscape architect expects. Their version of the scheme is the one where the landscape reads as designed mitigation, not decorative backdrop.

How StratumCGI Answered All Five Briefs in One CGI Set

StratumCGI reconciled the five party briefs into a single production pipeline that produced one coherent six-image still set. Every CGI view answers at least two of the briefs at once, and the set as a whole answers all five. The reconciliation happened in three phases.

Phase 1: Brief alignment

We mapped each image to the briefs it needed to serve. The hero entrance view carries the marketing and letting agent briefs. The aerial context and the masterplan aerial answer the investment committee and the landscape engineers. The service yard view answers the letting agent and the architects. The pedestrian human-scale image answers the architects and the consultation side of the landscape engineers. The facade material junction image answers the architects and the marketing team.

Phase 2: Model, material, and lighting setup

We rebuilt the scheme in V-Ray from the architects' CAD package, applied the RAL 7035 ribbed cladding, RAL 7016 plinth, and anthracite curtain wall mullions as physical materials, and set the lighting to the overcast UK reference-day specified by the landscape engineers for AVR Type 3 delivery. The service yard was modelled from dock leveller geometry upward so the letting agent brief and the architects' brief were both satisfied by the same geometry.

Phase 3: Render production and iteration

We rendered the hero view first and locked the camera and lighting rig. Every subsequent image was derived from that master state, which meant the six CGI views read as one visit to one scheme. Draft renders went back to the architects, the marketing team, and the landscape engineers in parallel, and we iterated through a small number of revision rounds on cladding tone, vehicle placement, and perimeter planting density until every brief was signed off.

Final delivery

The final set was delivered in three formats. Planning portal resolution for the architects and the landscape engineers. Print-ready resolution for the consultation boards. Web-sized and social crops for the marketing team and the letting agents. A consultation flythrough animation was quoted but not commissioned on this scheme; it remains available as an optional extra for buyers who want one.

How Golden Triangle Geography Shapes the CGI Brief

Big-box logistics park CGI in the UK Golden Triangle has to prove more than warehouse scale. It has to show how distribution units sit inside a motorway-led logistics geography, how HGVs enter and leave the estate, and how service yards are screened. It also has to show how the building mass is read from nearby roads, public rights of way, and planning receptors.

The Golden Triangle is the area bounded by the M1, M6, and M42 motorways, with the M69, M40, A5, A14, A45, and A46 running through it. For CGI planning work, those corridors matter because they influence viewpoint selection, estate road hierarchy, HGV turning geometry, landscape bunding, dock-face orientation, trailer parking, gatehouse placement, and the balance between operational proof and occupier-facing frontage quality.

On anonymised portfolio pages, StratumCGI keeps that geography tied to confirmed project evidence. Specific local authorities, park names, occupiers, and neighbouring assets are withheld unless the client approves them for publication. The published case study therefore focuses on the Golden Triangle big-box logistics CGI work that can be shown safely: masterplan context, service-yard proof, planning images, and investor-facing presentation imagery.

The practical brief remains specific. StratumCGI models the site context, establishes the aerial masterplan, tests the service yard and dock count, and places HGV circulation and staff parking in the correct hierarchy. The final images can then serve planning submission, stakeholder consultation, pre-let marketing, and investor review without exposing confidential scheme details.

Project Timeline

Industrial architectural visualisation of a big-box warehouse CGI service yard showing reverse-docked articulated HGVs at hydraulic dock levellers, UK Golden Triangle, AVR Type 3 final delivery image by StratumCGI, SCGI-001 anonymised case study — Industrial architectural visualisation · Big-box warehouse CGI service yard · SCGI-001 · StratumCGI

Day 1-2	Briefing & Modelling: Technical review and 3D base modelling
Day 3-5	Context & Materials: Site context modelling and material setup
Day 6-8	Draft Renders: Initial CGI for client review
Day 9-12	Refinement: Three revision rounds with adjustments
Day 13-14	Final Delivery: High-res renders and all formats

Commission

Commission Big-Box Logistics Park CGI

Planning CGI, aerial views, service yard stills, investor pack imagery, and brochure crops, prepared from your CAD or BIM, elevations, site plan, landscape plan, and viewpoint list. NDA-safe publication on request.

This commission connects to StratumCGI's broader warehouse logistics CGI, distribution centre CGI, and industrial architectural visualisation services for warehouse, data centre, and employment land schemes across Britain.

Brief Us on a Big-Box Scheme View Full Portfolio

Golden Triangle Big-Box Logistics Park CGI (SCGI-001)