A well-designed website is essential for any architecture firm. Not only is it a crucial touch point for attracting new clients and showcasing your work, but it also serves as a demonstration of your firm’s style and design skills.
A poorly designed website with low-resolution images, difficult user flows, clashing colors, and outdated content can make your firm look unprofessional and disorganized — and can sometimes be worse than not having a website at all.
On the other hand, a well-designed website with expertly curated content and thoughtful design elements can help you stand out as an industry leader who has mastered their craft.
But how do you create such a website while balancing your firm’s branding and values and including all the information your current and future clients need to know?
This article collects some of the most well-designed architecture websites out there to serve as inspiration for your own website. Although they have different styles, audiences, and scopes of work, they each are able to showcase their firm’s impressive design skills and talent in a way that’s eye-catching and engaging.
Keep reading to discover:
- 10 of the most well-designed architecture firm websites on the internet.
- Why they stand out against the competition.
- 5 tips and best practices you can use to create your own website.
1. SOM: Animations and Organization
SOM, or Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, is an international architecture firm that is known for its high-profile and innovative projects, including the One World Trade Center in New York.
SOM is a leader in creating environmentally conscious designs on a large scale, particularly in public spaces. They have an incredibly broad array of projects under their belt from all over the world, and their website does a fantastic job of showcasing them.
With a sleek, black background accented with high-quality color images of its projects, SOM puts both its projects and its values front and center. Instead of using stagnant hero images, they use animations on their homepage to showcase their latest project or development.
They also do a good job of organizing their website. Their map feature shows all the projects they’ve completed around the globe in an easy-to-process, condensed format, and their website is organized for easy navigation — despite the overwhelming amount of information they need to present.
2. Patterson Associates Architects: Eye-Catching Visuals
Patterson Associates is an architecture firm in New Zealand that specializes in creating buildings that feel like they belong in the landscape they exist in. With thoughtful use of shape, form, and daring modern design, Patterson Associates has completed dozens of projects all around the world.
Patterson Associates’ website stands out with its bold and eye-catching use of visual design. The homepage is an uneven grid of black-and-white photographs displaying artistic snapshots of their projects, which become colored once you scroll over them.
These are interspersed with the occasional red image of one of the firm’s leaders or employees, a subtle yet striking and creative way to create order without using words.
3. OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen: Minimalist and Elegant
OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen is a Belgian architecture firm that specializes in creating public spaces, museums, private residences, and even furniture. They are known for their minimalist yet elegant design style, which draws on the architectural history that surrounds them to create thoughtful spaces.
Their website emphasizes this minimalist ethos by using elegant, monochromatic design choices that are simple and understated.
The use of white space helps to create an uncluttered experience on the website, which is easy to navigate regardless of how much scrolling or clicking you want to do. The layout is also fluid and user-friendly — the different pages are clearly labeled which makes them easy to find immediately.
One area OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen really shines, however, is in their simple use of placing a slideshow of finished projects next to their blueprints on the homepage. This wordlessly demonstrates the firm’s talent and skill and gives insight into their work process.
4. Archi Graphi: Creative UI and Emphasizes What’s Important
Archi Graphi isn’t exactly an architecture firm in the traditional sense. Instead of focusing on building, Archi Graphi helps cities, companies, and architects communicate, collaborate, manage, and market their projects.
From a UX perspective, Archi Graphi’s website shines. Using a monochrome black background and white text as a base, they fill their website with creative, fun elements in the form of an unorthodox interface that loads more information as you scroll with clever animations and includes an animated circle that shows you what part of the page you’re on.
They also made the choice to put their menu on the side rather than on the top or bottom of their site.
Archi Graphi is also skilled at knowing how to place important elements front and center: Upon opening their website, you’re greeted with some of their best projects.
5. MAFCOHouse: — Friendly and Easy
MAFCOHouse is a Canadian architecture firm that specializes in environmentally-conscious residential homes that incorporate green building choices as well as nature-inspired design.
MAFCOHouse’s work is warm, down-to-earth, and refreshingly simple, and their website reflects this. Using a white background with sans-serif, friendly text, their homepage greets you with a few lines of copy that succinctly describe who they are and what they’re about.
This is accompanied by a few stand-out projects they’ve done and corresponding photos and a scroll-over, easy-to-find navigation bar in the top right corner. MAFCOHouse has mastered presenting its work and brand without letting itself get bogged down by overly complex stylistic elements.
6. Olson Kundig: Clean and Open (Like Their Designs)
Olson Kundig is an award-winning architecture firm that specializes in creating spaces that react to their surroundings and enhance the world around them. Combining natural elements like wood and stone with sleek, modern design and open space, Olson Kundig’s projects seek to complement the landscape they reside in.
Olson Kundig’s website reflects this focus on open and clean design. With an uncluttered layout that uses wide images that take up the entire page, the website isn’t afraid to speak with visuals.
The use of large fonts and white space makes it easy to focus on the projects they’ve completed, and when detailed descriptions are needed, the text still manages to be unobtrusive because of its generous columns of surrounding white space.
7. Largo Design Studio: Fun, Bold, and Different
Largo Design Studio is a Japanese architecture firm that specializes in designing commercial spaces such as beauty salons, offices, and restaurants. Their designs are fluid and creative, using geometric forms and shapes to create harmony and balance without sacrificing fun.
Like their designs, the Largo Design Studio website is a strange mix of loud, bold, unexpected elements with a clean, clear undertone. Upon entering the firm’s homepage, the user is met with a geometric animation that offsets its boldness with a subdued grayscale color scheme.
Then, when the website fully loads, the user is met with unorthodox choices such as a downward-pointing arrow that follows your cursor and an automatically running video with text overlapping it that explains more about the studio.
Largo Design Studio definitely takes the cake in creating a striking and creative website that incorporates its overall style and design ethos. It is incredibly memorable, and stylish, and stands out among dozens of firms using basic design templates.
8. Powerhouse Company: Engaging UI and Presentation
The Powerhouse Company is an award-winning architecture firm based in the Netherlands that specializes in intertwining aesthetics and function in every available piece of space. They’ve completed hundreds of projects worldwide, including office buildings, residential homes, hotels, and more.
With so many projects under its belt, Powerhouse Company is met with the challenge of displaying it all in a format that’s both comprehensive and not overwhelming. They solved this dilemma by placing all their projects in a photo-based grid that’s available right from the homepage.
All a user has to do to learn more is simply click on the photo, and they’re transported to a full page with details about the project, the team behind it, and the process of creating it.
This allows the user to see all the projects in one easily scannable format and quickly get a sense of the Powerhouse Company’s work. The minimalist layout and small, clean fonts also make it easy to focus on the content at hand.
The navigation menu is also presented creatively — instead of a traditional set of tabs, a sentence is displayed at the top that reads, “We give meaning to space.” The “We” is clickable and leads to the about page, while the “Space” leads to an organized menu of their projects.
9. 6a architects: Back to the Basics
6a architects is a London-based firm that uses design to create transformative spaces for people. Whether it’s a library or a home, 6a architects work to combine the history, environment, culture, and climate of a location to create unique designs.
With so many architecture firms having highly-produced websites, 6a architects bring it back to the basics with an extraordinarily simple website. Reminiscent of old-fashioned websites from the 2000s, the homepage is filled with a simple column of recent accomplishments, projects, or other items of note, displayed as a photo with a scroll-over description.
When you go to a different page, you are greeted with simple, black text on a white background and no-nonsense photos.
Verging on crude and undeveloped, 6a manages to pull off this simple style and make it feel fresh and minimalist. It shows that they are focused on their work, not how fancy their website is. This makes 6a architects stand out and feel approachable to potential clients.
10. RSHP: Use of Color and Format
RSHP (formerly Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners) is a global architecture firm that has been awarded numerous accolades for its work. Based in the U.K. and operating worldwide, RSHP helps cities, buildings, and communities solve their most pressing design challenges.
One of the things that make the RSHP website so unique is its use of bold colors and formatting choices. While the website doesn’t include many animations or videos, it does make great use of photos, colored boxes, and colored text to emphasize certain points and add an artistic flair.
One area where this is showcased is on the “People” page. Each person is photographed with a flat background in a different bright color, which helps breathe some life and personality into an otherwise standard page.
Another point of interest on RSHP’s website is the way they word their navigation. Instead of using the standard “Work,” “Values,” “About,” and “Team,” RSHP uses “Projects,” “Practice,” “People,” and “Approach.” This small detail helps to show the attention to detail and thought behind their work.
5 Tips for Architecture Website Best Practices
Each of the above websites offers its own unique take on how to create a great website. However, there are some trends that emerge when you look at them as a whole.
Here are the top five best practices you should take into consideration when building your own firm’s website, as inspired by these examples:
1. Get Creative
Architecture is an artistic endeavor, and your website should reflect this just as much as your projects do. While not every single aspect of your website has to be completely original, many of the best examples in the above list got creative with at least some element of their website.
For example, Archi Graphi had a unique and eye-catching UI with its use of scrolling and formatting, while Largo Design Studio incorporated several elements, such as overlapping text on images and animation, that went against the grain of the average website template.
Experiment with using unorthodox approaches toward your:
- User interface
- Navigation
- Copy
- Colors
- Formatting
2. Use Visuals
As an architecture firm, your work is likely composed of beautiful visual elements. Whether it’s a rendering or a photo of the finished project, using high-quality images on your website that really show off what you do is an absolute must.
Whether you focus on ensuring your photos are outstanding, formatting your visuals in a creative way, or speaking through visuals rather than text, make sure you put visuals front and center.
Many of the above firms made a point of ensuring visuals took up much of the real estate on their pages, whether it was in the form of one large photograph or a grid of dozens of small photographs.
3. Organize Your Information Thoughtfully
As much as aesthetics play a role in your website’s presentation and design, you can’t let them get in the way of functionality. The best architecture firm websites all make it easy to find the information you are looking for, whether it’s about a specific project or simply more information on your firm.
Consider using tabs, drop-down menus, and clear page structures to organize your information in an intuitive way that allows visitors to jump right where they want to be. Simple navigation is key to an effective architecture website design.
4. Explain Yourself
Architecture and design are a lot less concrete than other industries, and as such, it can sometimes be difficult to explain exactly what you do, how you do it, and what your values and processes are. However, if a potential client is viewing your website for the first time with no prior knowledge of your work, they absolutely need to know these things.
Many of the websites above incorporate clever yet clear methods of explaining who they are and what they do. 6a architects have a very detailed explanation of their history and ethos under their “Information” page, while Pattersons Associates tells their story primarily through the photos of their work and team.
No matter what approach you take, you always need to ensure website visitors can find the basic information about what your firm does, how to get in contact with you, and who’s on your team.
5. Have an Impressive Homepage
Finally, it’s important to note that your homepage is the very first thing a potential client will see when visiting your website. As such, it absolutely needs to be one of the best aspects of your whole site.
Although your homepage doesn’t have to include every single project you’ve done or piece of information about your firm, it should be eye-catching and do a sufficient job of letting people get the overall picture. Some great examples of effective and powerful homepages are Powerhouse Company, MAFCOHouse, and OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen.
Conclusion
As an architecture firm, your website is one of the most important tools for showcasing your work, engaging with potential clients, and establishing yourself as a leader in the industry.
To be truly successful, however, it’s essential to go beyond just having a visually appealing website that works properly; you also need to experiment with unconventional approaches and incorporate elements like video, animation, colors, or unique UI.
And above all else, make sure your website is always reflective of your firm’s branding and values.
