A creative studio · London
Present in everything. Visible in nothing.
Zaltt is salt, spelled our way. Salt is in every dish worth eating and you never see it: the dish tastes of itself, only better. That is how we build. Architecture, visualisation, and software, made so the work carries the client's name and not ours.
We work where the physical and the digital meet. We render by hand, and we build tools.
- Architecture
- Visualisation
- Software
- London · Est. 2026
Ideology
Four things we hold.
Not a manifesto. Four rules we can actually be held to, and which decide what we take on and what we turn down.
The maker disappears into the work
A good dish does not taste of the cook. A good building does not perform the architect. We measure our work by how little of us is left in it, and how much of the client is.
Physical and digital are one discipline
A recipe, a building, an interface: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result a stranger lives inside. Same craft, different clothes.
The first step decides everything
In coffee it is the bloom. In architecture it is the concept. The cheap early decisions determine everything downstream, and they are the ones everyone rushes.
Honesty is a feature
We say what our tools cannot do before you find out. We label hand work as hand work and AI output as AI output. Trust compounds; cleverness does not.
The through line
One craft, wearing different clothes.
A building and an interface are the same problem: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result somebody else has to live inside. We refuse to treat them as separate professions, which is why the tools we build for architects are designed by one.
What we do
Five ways to work with us.
One studio, one standard, several doors in. Every engagement starts with a conversation, not a form.
Architectural visualisation
- Concept studies and maquette-style renders
- Presentation and competition visuals
- Hand-crafted, not generated
Drawings, sketches, art prints
- Hand drawing and illustration
- Commissioned pieces and prints
- For practices, publications, walls
Computational design
- Grasshopper and scripted geometry
- Facades, structures, complex form
- Where drawing by hand runs out
Experience and product design
- UX research and service blueprints
- Tools for the built environment
- Grounded in an MSc in HCI
Custom software and local AI
- Web, internal tools, private AI systems
- Built the way Bloooom is built
- Local where it matters, honest everywhere
Our first product
Bloooom. The AI a practice can say yes to.
A local AI server that lives inside an architecture studio. The whole design team visualises ideas from their own desks, in the practice's own style. Turn the WiFi off and it still works, so client work cannot leave the building.
Named for the first thirty seconds of a pour-over: the step everyone skips, and everything downstream tastes of it. Bloooom is for deciding, not delivering. It shows a team their own ideas faster, and the final work stays theirs.
The founder
Built by an architect who also builds software.
Founder, Zaltt
An architect at heart, an HCI specialist, and a designer fueled by fresh espresso and raw paper. Spatial design is where my passion sits, especially when it comes to giving great ideas the visual presence they need to succeed. That desire to elevate every concept led me to found Zaltt. Blending paper sketches, 3D software, advanced rendering, and physical maquette work, I craft every visual published here to elevate spatial thinking and bring compelling concepts to life.
Contact
One short letter, when there is something worth saying.
Commissions, collaborations, and Bloooom enquiries all start at the same address. We reply to everything written by a person.
Bloooom station enquiries: sales@zaltt.com
A creative studio · London
Present in everything. Visible in nothing.
Zaltt is salt, spelled our way. Salt is in every dish worth eating and you never see it: the dish tastes of itself, only better. That is how we build. Architecture, visualisation, and software, made so the work carries the client's name and not ours.
We work where the physical and the digital meet. We render by hand, and we build tools.
- Architecture
- Visualisation
- Software
- London · Est. 2026
Ideology
Four things we hold.
Not a manifesto. Four rules we can actually be held to, and which decide what we take on and what we turn down.
The maker disappears into the work
A good dish does not taste of the cook. A good building does not perform the architect. We measure our work by how little of us is left in it, and how much of the client is.
Physical and digital are one discipline
A recipe, a building, an interface: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result a stranger lives inside. Same craft, different clothes.
The first step decides everything
In coffee it is the bloom. In architecture it is the concept. The cheap early decisions determine everything downstream, and they are the ones everyone rushes.
Honesty is a feature
We say what our tools cannot do before you find out. We label hand work as hand work and AI output as AI output. Trust compounds; cleverness does not.
The through line
One craft, wearing different clothes.
A building and an interface are the same problem: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result somebody else has to live inside. We refuse to treat them as separate professions, which is why the tools we build for architects are designed by one.
What we do
Five ways to work with us.
One studio, one standard, several doors in. Every engagement starts with a conversation, not a form.
Architectural visualisation
- Concept studies and maquette-style renders
- Presentation and competition visuals
- Hand-crafted, not generated
Drawings, sketches, art prints
- Hand drawing and illustration
- Commissioned pieces and prints
- For practices, publications, walls
Computational design
- Grasshopper and scripted geometry
- Facades, structures, complex form
- Where drawing by hand runs out
Experience and product design
- UX research and service blueprints
- Tools for the built environment
- Grounded in an MSc in HCI
Custom software and local AI
- Web, internal tools, private AI systems
- Built the way Bloooom is built
- Local where it matters, honest everywhere
Our first product
Bloooom. The AI a practice can say yes to.
A local AI server that lives inside an architecture studio. The whole design team visualises ideas from their own desks, in the practice's own style. Turn the WiFi off and it still works, so client work cannot leave the building.
Named for the first thirty seconds of a pour-over: the step everyone skips, and everything downstream tastes of it. Bloooom is for deciding, not delivering. It shows a team their own ideas faster, and the final work stays theirs.
The founder
Built by an architect who also builds software.
Founder, Zaltt
An architect at heart, an HCI specialist, and a designer fueled by fresh espresso and raw paper. Spatial design is where my passion sits, especially when it comes to giving great ideas the visual presence they need to succeed. That desire to elevate every concept led me to found Zaltt. Blending paper sketches, 3D software, advanced rendering, and physical maquette work, I craft every visual published here to elevate spatial thinking and bring compelling concepts to life.
Contact
One short letter, when there is something worth saying.
Commissions, collaborations, and Bloooom enquiries all start at the same address. We reply to everything written by a person.
Bloooom station enquiries: sales@zaltt.com
A creative studio · London
Present in everything. Visible in nothing.
Zaltt is salt, spelled our way. Salt is in every dish worth eating and you never see it: the dish tastes of itself, only better. That is how we build. Architecture, visualisation, and software, made so the work carries the client's name and not ours.
We work where the physical and the digital meet. We render by hand, and we build tools.
- Architecture
- Visualisation
- Software
- London · Est. 2026
Ideology
Four things we hold.
Not a manifesto. Four rules we can actually be held to, and which decide what we take on and what we turn down.
The maker disappears into the work
A good dish does not taste of the cook. A good building does not perform the architect. We measure our work by how little of us is left in it, and how much of the client is.
Physical and digital are one discipline
A recipe, a building, an interface: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result a stranger lives inside. Same craft, different clothes.
The first step decides everything
In coffee it is the bloom. In architecture it is the concept. The cheap early decisions determine everything downstream, and they are the ones everyone rushes.
Honesty is a feature
We say what our tools cannot do before you find out. We label hand work as hand work and AI output as AI output. Trust compounds; cleverness does not.
The through line
One craft, wearing different clothes.
A building and an interface are the same problem: constrained material, a decision about how to treat it, and a result somebody else has to live inside. We refuse to treat them as separate professions, which is why the tools we build for architects are designed by one.
What we do
Five ways to work with us.
One studio, one standard, several doors in. Every engagement starts with a conversation, not a form.
Architectural visualisation
- Concept studies and maquette-style renders
- Presentation and competition visuals
- Hand-crafted, not generated
Drawings, sketches, art prints
- Hand drawing and illustration
- Commissioned pieces and prints
- For practices, publications, walls
Computational design
- Grasshopper and scripted geometry
- Facades, structures, complex form
- Where drawing by hand runs out
Experience and product design
- UX research and service blueprints
- Tools for the built environment
- Grounded in an MSc in HCI
Custom software and local AI
- Web, internal tools, private AI systems
- Built the way Bloooom is built
- Local where it matters, honest everywhere
Our first product
Bloooom. The AI a practice can say yes to.
A local AI server that lives inside an architecture studio. The whole design team visualises ideas from their own desks, in the practice's own style. Turn the WiFi off and it still works, so client work cannot leave the building.
Named for the first thirty seconds of a pour-over: the step everyone skips, and everything downstream tastes of it. Bloooom is for deciding, not delivering. It shows a team their own ideas faster, and the final work stays theirs.
The founder
Built by an architect who also builds software.
Founder, Zaltt
An architect at heart, an HCI specialist, and a designer fueled by fresh espresso and raw paper. Spatial design is where my passion sits, especially when it comes to giving great ideas the visual presence they need to succeed. That desire to elevate every concept led me to found Zaltt. Blending paper sketches, 3D software, advanced rendering, and physical maquette work, I craft every visual published here to elevate spatial thinking and bring compelling concepts to life.
Contact
One short letter, when there is something worth saying.
Commissions, collaborations, and Bloooom enquiries all start at the same address. We reply to everything written by a person.
Bloooom station enquiries: sales@zaltt.com
A private visual workspace for architects
Stop drafting options just to see if they work.
The early design phase is a mess of fluid ideas, tight deadlines, and grey boxes. Zaltt lets you test materials, light, and form directly over your sketches and massing, before your team spends billable hours drawing them. Your lines stay locked. Your style stays yours. Your work stays in your building.
- Your lines stay locked
- Learns your studio's hand
- Private, down to the plug
From instinct to decision
Drop in a sketch. See the material, not the grey box.
Describe the idea the way you would to a colleague, and Zaltt wraps your exact lines in real materials and light. Drag the handle: a hand sketch of a living room, and the study Zaltt returned. Your drawing stays your drawing.
Add the sketch and study images via the component properties panel (Before image / After image).
The friction we pretend doesn't exist
Every option you test today costs billable hours. Most of them get thrown out.
The over-modelling trap
Your team spends billable hours modelling detail for a client option that might get thrown out the minute they see it. You are burning project fee to test an aesthetic hunch.
The grey-box blindspot
It is hard to judge a concept staring at raw massing and wireframes. You want to feel how a timber-clad first floor sits on a heavy masonry base, but your tools make you wait until the drawing stage to see it.
The quiet NDA panic
Somewhere in your office, someone is uploading a confidential client sketch to a public AI site just to see it rendered. Every upload is a leak, and a liability, waiting to happen.
The concept loop
From a grey block to a decision, in one sitting.
Start where you are
A pre-app meeting is coming, and you need to know if dark linear brick or patinated zinc is right for that north elevation. Open Zaltt in your browser. No rendering engine to boot, no technician to brief.
Drop it in, say what you want
Drag in a hand sketch, a SketchUp block-out, or a clay view. Your wall lines and volumes lock in place. Then describe the idea the way you would to a colleague: "handmade red brick, dark bronze trims, soft winter light."
Watch the options roll
In moments, your exact proportions come back wrapped in real materials and atmosphere. Try dozens of brick bonds, timber profiles, and cladding finishes in an afternoon, and decide before anyone drafts a line.
It learns your hand
Every study you save teaches Zaltt more about your studio's taste. Over time, your youngest assistant can test options that carry the senior partners' eye.
Your practice's moat
Anyone can buy software. Nobody else has your archive.
Every sketch, detail, and finished render your studio has produced is design equity. Zaltt learns from it, privately, so the studies it returns look like your work, not the internet's average. Your style model belongs to your practice and never trains anyone else's.
These properties describe the Enterprise on-premise station. Cloud tiers run in Zaltt's cloud; see the tier matrix below.
Where your work lives
Three tiers. No fine print about where your work goes.
We don't hide where your unbuilt ideas go. "Never leaves your building" is a strong claim, so we scope it precisely: it applies to the Enterprise on-premise station only, never to a cloud deployment.
Free
Cloud- Runs on
- Zaltt's cloud
- Your images
- Nothing to upload. You test ideas with built-in style packs, and your portfolio never leaves your machine.
- Style training
- Not included
- Air-gapped
- No
Subscription
Cloud- Runs on
- Zaltt's cloud
- Your images
- Your files train your own private style model, never anyone else's, and are deleted the moment training completes.
- Style training
- Private model, trained securely in our cloud
- Air-gapped
- No. Private, but it is a cloud service.
Enterprise
On-premise- Runs on
- A physical box plugged into your office network
- Your images
- Never leave your building. Nothing is sent to the internet at any step.
- Style training
- Private model, trained on the box, inside your office
- Air-gapped
- Yes. Verify it yourself: pull the network cable and it keeps working.
On every tier, your images train only your own firm's private model. They are never used to train shared models, base models, or anyone else's model.
In plain terms
What is Zaltt?
Zaltt is a private visual workspace for architecture studios. It sits upstream of your CAD and BIM tools: you drop in a sketch or massing view, describe the materials and light you want to try, and get back concept studies in your studio's own style, with your lines locked. On the Enterprise tier, it runs entirely on a box inside your office.
| Zaltt | Public AI tools | Traditional rendering | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early concept speed | Real-time options | Fast, but the lines go wrong | Slow: model everything first |
| Your lines | Locked to your sketch | Warped and redrawn | Exact, but hours of setup |
| Your style | Learned from your archive | The internet's average | Built by hand, every time |
| Your confidential work | Enterprise: never leaves your building | Uploaded to public servers | Stays local |
| Getting started | One box, whole studio | Per-seat subscriptions | Licenses and specialists |
The architect behind it
Built by an architect, for architects.
Unmesh Lele
Founder, Zaltt
Unmesh trained as an architect before moving into UX design. He has sat through the pre-app deadlines, the grey-box reviews, and the render queues that Zaltt removes, so he built the tool the way he wished his own studio software worked: private, fast, and respectful of the drawing.
Questions architects ask
Frequently asked questions
What is Zaltt?+
Zaltt is a private visual workspace for architecture studios. You drop in a sketch or massing view, describe the materials and light you want to try, and it returns concept studies in your studio's own style, with your lines locked. Its Enterprise tier runs entirely on a box inside your office.
Does it replace our CAD and BIM tools?+
No. Zaltt sits upstream of them. It is designed to help you test ideas, material pairings, and volumes quickly, before you invest time and fee in coordinated technical drawings. You keep modelling exactly as you do today.
Will it redraw or distort our design?+
No. Unlike public AI tools that rewrite your image, Zaltt keeps your lines locked. Your floor plates, wall lines, and volumes stay exactly where you drew them. Think of it as an interactive cladding and lighting study laid directly over your sketch.
How is Zaltt different from Midjourney or other AI image tools?+
Three ways. It learns your studio's style from your own archive rather than scraped web images, so studies come back looking like your work. It locks your lines instead of hallucinating a new building. And on the Enterprise tier, your work never leaves your office, while public tools require uploading to someone else's servers.
Is our confidential work secure?+
On the Enterprise tier, yes, physically so: the software runs on a box inside your building, connected only to your internal network, and nothing is sent to the internet. You can pull the network cable out of the wall and it keeps working. Cloud tiers are private but run in Zaltt's cloud, and we say so plainly.
Does Zaltt train on my firm's data?+
Your images train only your own firm's private style model. They are never used to train shared models or any other studio's model, on any tier. On the Enterprise tier, training runs on your own hardware and the trained model belongs to your firm.
Do we need rendering specialists to use it?+
No. If you can describe a material palette to a colleague, you can drive Zaltt. You write what you want to test in plain language, like "handmade local red brick, Flemish bond, dark bronze window trim, soft winter daylight," and drop in a hand sketch, a SketchUp block-out, or a clay view.
How much does Zaltt cost?+
Enterprise stations are quoted per practice, based on the number of trained styles and hardware. Secure a station and we will walk you through it. Pricing for the cloud tiers will be published when they launch.
We are quietly installing studio stations in five UK practices this quarter.
We handle the installation, plug the station into your network, and set it up on your built portfolio, so your team can start testing ideas in your signature style from day one.