Architecture Website Design That Lets the Work Speak

Architects are visual people with a high bar for design, and their clients are too. An architecture website has to feel considered: generous space, a careful grid, typography that does not compete with the photographs. It also has to perform, because full-screen project images are exactly what makes most portfolio sites slow.

I have worked with an architecture firm since 2008 and still maintain its site today. That long relationship has taught me what architects need from their website over time: a portfolio that is easy to add to, project pages that tell the story of each building, and a structure that lets potential clients filter by project type.

Smaller practices often need the site to do double duty, as a portfolio for prospective clients and as a recruiting tool for designers who want to join the studio, so team and approach pages get the same care as the projects. Behind the minimal design, each project page is set up to be found: descriptive titles, location and building type in the text, properly sized images with meaningful alt text, and schema that helps search engines understand the firm and its work.