The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can support a declarative model-based approach to designing, constructing, and rendering visualizations. By complying with a declarative descriptor, components can be readily customized by way of modifications to the model—declaratively specifying suitable features, behaviors, appearances and so forth. The descriptors that conform to the model can also facilitate connecting to various data sources and performing data transformation operations. Moreover, the descriptors that conform to the model can declaratively specify relationships based upon a scene layout. Accordingly, the architecture can further describe the scene layout and provide features based upon the layout.