From Revit Models to Client Approval: How Enscape Powers Pickleball Facility Design

Summary

• Jim Balding, founder of The ANT Group and architect of nearly 40 years, is the preferred architect for the USA Pickleball Association.
• After Jim adopted Enscape for Revit, it became a key decision-making tool, letting stakeholders walk through, understand, and iterate on designs in real time.
• Jim has designed numerous pickleball courts, using a Revit-Enscape workflow that has helped cut client approval time.
• Using Enscape, he employs well-considered techniques to give clients the full experience of the space—long before construction begins.
  
  This case study was adapted from Phil Read’s fantastic write-up on LinkedIn. Follow Phil on LinkedIn for more tips, tricks, and stories about using Enscape.
  

Pickleball is the fun and social sporting phenomenon that experienced an enormous popularity boost beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic. With millions picking up the paddles, the demand for pickleball courts has resulted in a rush to build new courts and retrofit old facilities to accommodate the fanatical picklers (or “players” for those yet to be converted). Architect Jim Balding has become the go-to man for designing pickleball facilities.

Jim’s firm, California-based The ANT Group, was named the Preferred Architects of the USA Pickleball Association. And, with more than 500 pickleball courts designed, it’s not hard to see why. 

Using Enscape for Revit, Jim relies on a number of tried-and-tested techniques to add detail and visual impact to his designs—not just for presentation, but as an active part of the design process. By visualizing in real time, he can fine-tune materials, layout, and branding long before anything is shared with the client. Read on to learn why Enscape has become such a go-to tool for Jim, and discover some of the techniques behind his famous pickleball renderings.

Using Enscape as a decision-making tool

Despite being a long-time advocate for integrating technology into the architectural design process—The ANT Group’s full name is The Architects with New Technologies Group—Jim wasn’t always convinced a rendering was a necessary part of the design process. Early in his career, he assumed that clients could visualize spaces as clearly as he could, so rendering felt more like a “nice-to-have” than a critical tool. It seemed like a time-consuming addition that added complexity rather than clarity.

But all of that changed after he was introduced to Enscape.

As Jim got to know the tool, he discovered Enscape’s real power wasn’t rendering—it was live client collaboration. The real-time walkthroughs allowed instant feedback loops as it acted as a key decision-making tool during the design process. Enscape lets Jim better immerse clients in the design, so they can understand and fully experience the space. This, in turn, puts them at ease and they feel comfortable asking questions and testing new ideas. 

Over time, Jim has refined and developed his processes in Enscape, creating detail-rich design renderings. These techniques mean clients can experience their retail and sports facilities long before construction begins, seeing how Jim’s designs fulfill the functional requirements for the space, but also getting a real taste for how the space will feel for customers and staff.

How to better immerse clients in your sports facility design

Including realistic key details in Enscape renderings grounds designs in reality. Here are a few of Jim’s frequently used techniques.

Curtain panel for fencing and cutout materials

Fencing between pickleball courts is essential for both player safety and facility requirements. That said, modeling the fencing mesh as full 3D geometry would significantly increase the file size in Revit. Jim’s solution is a smart visual trick that maintains realism while also keeping the model lightweight.

Using Revit’s curtain panel system, Jim built fences from rails, posts, and wire panels. He swapped the default rectangular mullion profiles with round ones, to mimic circular posts and railings, and giving the fence a more realistic appearance. Curtain panels also help with area scheduling for accurate area calculations and allow for flexible edits, such as moving mullions to accommodate gates and other design features.

Jim designed a custom cutout pattern directly in Revit to create the illusion of mesh. He used a Drafting View to sketch a solid fill pattern based on a reference photo, ensuring the mesh had a realistic scale and aspect ratio. The result is a very convincing mesh material that looks detailed, and also renders quickly in real-time.

This clever technique also simulates other mesh elements across the project, including nets on the courts and the wire mesh above the retail and reception areas.

Pickleballs and custom pendant lamps

Another way Jim adds richness and personality to his rendering is by mixing material tricks with bespoke modeling. 

The bright yellow pickleballs, for example, are created using cutout patterns in the Revit material editor. Rather than modeling the signature holes into each ball, the cutout gives the illusion of complexity—saving time and keeping performance smooth while still delivering a detailed, realistic result.

Jim takes a different approach with the custom pendant lamps seen above the customer reception area. These lamps weren’t built with cutout patterns, but fully modeled to reflect a playful take on the facility’s branding. The lamp design echoes a shape found in the corporate logo, adding a subtle but clever identity touch to the space.

Initially, Jim’s client assumed the custom lights would be too costly or difficult to produce. However, after seeing the concept rendered in Enscape and then reviewing fabrication costs, they actually decided to bring Jim’s idea to life.

Due to the lamp’s teardrop shape, a surface pattern wouldn’t do the trick. Instead, Jim modeled the fixtures using a revolve in the Revit Family Editor to form the main shape. Then, he created the circular holes by subtracting a series of cylindrical voids, carefully angled so that the perforations appear circular from the viewer’s perspective rather than stretched or elliptical. 

Finally, he added a Revit light object to the pendant family to simulate internal illumination in Enscape, completing the look.

The Placeholder Approach: the power of placeholder geometry

Although the smoothie machine in Jim’s renderings might look like a complex custom model, it didn’t start that way. Like many elements in his workflow, it began as a simple placeholder.

Instead of spending hours perfecting detailed components in the Family Editor before placing them in a project, Jim takes a more efficient and flexible approach. Early in the design process, it’s usually enough to define what something is and where it goes. A simple rectangular mass, assigned to the correct family category, communicates design intent without unnecessary complexity. 

Then, as the design progresses and there’s a greater need for detail, Jim refines these placeholders in parallel with the design iteration process, adding geometry, materials, and other information slowly over time and as required. The family can then be reloaded into the project, instantly updating all instances without disrupting the model. Better yet, once he has the family, next time it’s needed, it’s already waiting in the pickleball facility library—and he can continue spending time on them, making them even better. For example, Jim shared that future upgrades might include upgrading the handles or reshaping the smoothie mixture so that it’s a 3D swept blend.

Jim calls this iterative technique “the placeholder approach”—a method he helped develop in the early 2000s while working at WATG. It saves time, avoids wasted effort on elements that may not make it into the final design, and keeps the focus on decision-making early on. It’s a smart way to balance speed with precision.

Sponsorship banner: fast, flexible branding

Branding and sponsorships really bring a space to life, adding colorful visual energy and greater emotional buy-in by clients. But, incorporating them effectively into a design requires flexibility. Jim needed to find a way to quickly iterate on sponsor banners without jumping in and out of the family editor. 

His solution? Use wall types.

Jim created each banner as a thin wall type with custom material applied. Instead of modeling individual components, he applied images as textures, and used model patterns to control their origin, alignment, and placement and the material editor to control scale. This technique made it easy to place and adjust banners within the project environment—no need to re-edit a family every time a sponsor or logo needed to be changed.

The result is a lightweight and adaptable system. Custom wall types can be reused across the facility design—on fences, walls, and other surfaces—making it simple to swap branding in and out as needed. And in Enscape, these added graphics go a long way to making walkthroughs even more dynamic and authentic.

Custom wallpaper: adding color and character

Initially, Jim’s client envisioned simple gray walls above the play area—but by this point in the design process, the project had embraced bold ideas like custom lighting and branded features. So, when it came to the wall finish, Jim saw an opportunity to elevate the space even further.

Starting in Revit, he drafted a custom pattern of nets, paddles, and pickleballs in a Drafting View, carefully sized and scaled to suit the space. This solid fill pattern was then exported as an image and brought into Photoshop for enhancement.

In Photoshop, Jim added color, texture, and drop shadows to give the appearance of depth and dimension to the graphic. The background was created using a water texture, giving a soft mottled effect that brings the design to life. The final material was then applied to the wall surface in Revit as a custom material.

The result is a vibrant, fun purple backdrop that adds visual energy to the facility, and creates a contrast to highlight the on-court action. Just one more example of how thoughtful visual design can enhance both the brand and user experience.

Illuminated Signage: adding realism with material-based lighting

One of the advantages of using Enscape over Revit alone is the ability to simulate realistic lighting effects. That includes not only Revit’s native light objects, but also materials with emissive properties, allowing solid colors or images to appear self-illuminated.

Jim took advantage of this capability to bring signage to life within the pickleball complex. Here, he modeled a face-based family and traced the client’s logo in the Family Editor to create the 3D signage geometry. Material parameters were applied to give the logo and letters the correct colors and finishes.

To simulate the glow, Jim selected and duplicated the signage geometry, created a thin offset extrusion behind the main letters, and applied a material with emissive properties. This subtle layer of backlighting gives the illusion that the letters float slightly in front of the wall, illuminated from behind—creating a sleek, branded visual effect in Enscape.

Not every version of the sign needed to be illuminated, though. Rather than creating multiple families, Jim added a Yes/No instance parameter that controls the visibility of the backlit geometry. This allowed him to toggle the illuminated material on or off for each instance, offering flexibility without increasing file complexity.

Custom pickleball player assets

To help clients better understand the scale and atmosphere of the facility, Jim also added custom player assets through the design—each posed in different action stances and rendered in neutral white. These assets help reinforce how the space will function without distracting from the architecture or branding.

Jim’s assets were created specifically by Read|Thomas, and give him a clean, context-rich way to populate the scene. It’s another thoughtful detail that helps stakeholders visualize how the courts will feel in real use.

If you need custom Enscape assets for your own design projects, the Read|Thomas team can help bring your vision to life.

Successful Design Reviews

After creating the designs, Jim focuses on careful planning to facilitate a successful design review, whether in person or online. Rather than manually navigating through the model during a meeting, Jim uses Enscape’s favorited views to guide the conversation, giving the review purpose and clarity.

Each view is named and ordered to match the design narrative, acting as visual bookmarks that walk the client through the project. This structured approach ensures nothing is missed and helps Jim stay focused on key talking points while allowing space for organic discussion.

If particular views aren’t needed for a meeting, they’re not deleted but renumbered to fall to the bottom of the list. This way, Jim still maintains a master set of reference views while also keeping presentations tailored and efficient.

At each stop during the presentation, Jim adjusts the camera or zooms in to highlight features, address questions, or illustrate functional decisions. He often creates multiple views in the same area to emphasize the design's unique benefits, such as visibility, circulation, or experiential details.

For Jim, Enscape is more than just a rendering tool; it’s a communication platform. Because his models are made using the design option tool in Revit, he can toggle between alternatives in real time, flipping between Option A and Option B from the same camera angle. This immediate comparison helps clients clearly understand differences, weigh decisions on the spot, and feel confident in the direction being taken.

Ultimately, it’s how Jim brings a space to life well before it’s built—a place where community is fostered, competition is celebrated, and customers can relax and recharge before stepping back onto the court.

Curious to hear more about Jim's approach and techniques? Be sure to watch his discussion with Phil Read of Read|Thomas.

Wrapping up

With close to four decades of experience in architecture, Jim Balding’s deep expertise, forward-thinking innovation, and agility within the industry have been the perfect blend as he has consistently pushed boundaries of how technology can transform the design process and enhance client engagement.

His approach perfectly demonstrates how Building Information Modeling with Revit, combined with real-time visualization in Enscape, can power more assured and faster decision-making. Whether he’s designing new pickleball facilities, or reinventing existing sports facilities, Jim shows how considered use of technology can create spaces that are highly functional, welcoming and inspiring.

As the AEC industry continues to evolve, Jim remains a standout figure, matching his years of experience with a relentless curiosity for what’s next.