A website for architects that you walk through
People choose an architect by what they’ve built. Before anyone calls about a plot, or a flat that needs gutting, they have looked at your houses one by one and asked themselves whether they would live in one.
A grid of thumbnails shrinks a building to a stamp. Studio hangs your projects the way an exhibition would: the practice’s name at the door, then a long white room where each one hangs framed, under its own spot, with its caption, and visitors walk past them by scrolling.
After the walk: your services, the people in the practice, the clients you can name, and a form for the next commission. It’s filled in from your browser, and what you download is plain files you own.
What your site shows
The threshold
Your practice’s name runs along the foot of the screen, wide and heavy, and narrows as the visitor steps in. Above it, one sentence on what you design and where — the sentence your page hands Google as its description.
The room
A long gallery built in code: warm white walls, skylights, a track of spots, polished concrete that reflects the room, even a shadow gap where wall meets floor. Scrolling walks it, past a bench halfway along.
Each project
A photograph of the finished building, a section or a render hangs mounted under glass, the frame taking its proportions. The walk halts in front of it and leans in while its caption comes up alongside.
The practice
Your services follow as very large words that widen as they cross the screen — new build, refurbishment, interiors. Then the practice itself: how you work, partners and team with their roles, the founding year beside your city.
The next commission
At the end wall the view turns back towards the daylight in the doorway, and the enquiry form settles over it. Someone with a plot picks a budget range and describes the site — or books a call, if you’ve linked a calendar.
Have this ready
- Three to eight projects, one picture each: the photograph that best explains the building, or a drawing or render for work still on paper.
- For each: its name, the client (optional — leave it blank for a private house), what you did, the year it was finished, one line.
- Two to six services, each a short word — it’s set very large — with a sentence.
- The people in the practice and their roles, the founding year, and any clients you’re free to name.
- Your email, phone and address, plus your legal name and tax number for the legal page.
- A free Web3Forms key so enquiries reach your inbox, and a Cal.com link if you’d like people to book calls.
Worth knowing
One picture has to carry the building
Each project gets a single frame, so choosing the photograph is already the argument. Skip the widest shot and pick the one that holds the idea: the light in the main room, the house against its slope, the stair everyone photographs.
Say what’s built and what isn’t
Renders and competition entries can hang beside finished work, but label them: “Competition” or “Under construction” in what you did. A client is weighing what you’ve delivered, and a render mistaken for a photograph costs trust once noticed.
Credit the photographer
If a photographer shot the building, name them in the project’s line — “Photo: …” fits within its 110 characters — and check that what you agreed with them covers showing the pictures on your own website.
Write the first sentence for search
Your answer to “what is your business about?” opens the page and becomes its description for Google; your slogan goes into the title. Say what you design and where, as a client would type it: houses, refurbishments, your town.
Questions
- Can a project show a series of photos, or its plans?
- One picture and its caption make up each project: there’s no page behind the frame. If a plan or a section says more than a photograph, hang it as a piece of its own — you have up to eight frames to spend.
- Our clients are private families. Do we have to name them?
- No. The client on each project is optional, and so is the list of clients: leave it empty and the page simply skips that section. The project’s name can carry the place instead — “House in Begur” says enough.
- We finished a house last month. How do we add it?
- There’s no admin panel to log into: open the wizard again in the same browser — your answers are still there — add the project and download the site again. Upload the new folder to Cloudflare as a new deployment and it’s live within minutes. With all eight frames full, take one down first.
- Where do enquiries end up, and what does it cost to run?
- In your inbox: the form sends through Web3Forms with a free key you get in two minutes. Without one, Send offers a link that opens the visitor’s own email with their message in it, addressed to you. Hosting on Cloudflare’s free plan costs nothing, a domain around €10–15 a year, and the kit itself is €500, paid once.