Architects Website Design
Design-led websites for architects where the work leads and the detail convinces. We design and build custom websites for architecture practices and interior designers across the UK, built around large project photography and drawings, with your services mapped to the RIBA stages, planning guidance for clients and a clear route to an initial consultation.
An Architect's Website Is Judged the Way Your Buildings Are
A homeowner planning an extension has usually been saving images for months before they search for an architect. They know what they like, they are nervous about planning permission and cost, and they are choosing someone to trust with their house and a large sum of money. They will look at every practice's projects, read how the process works and judge whether you will listen. Developers and commercial clients do the same with more procurement and less emotion.
That makes an architecture website a design problem in its own right. The projects are the argument, so the photography and drawings need room, and the typography and whitespace have to be as considered as the buildings, because clients judge your eye from the first screen. It also has to carry substance: which RIBA stages you handle, how planning and building regulations fit in, how you charge and the ARB and RIBA details clients check.
DigitalPod is a UK web design studio that designs and builds websites for professional and creative businesses, working with you online from the first call to launch. Every site is designed from scratch and hand-coded, which matters for a portfolio site: large images are served at the right size for each screen so the pages stay fast. Architects' websites start from £2,400, with a fixed quote agreed before work begins and the finished site owned by the practice.
What We Build Into an Architecture Practice Website
Projects as the Core of the Site
Case studies with full-width photography, plans and sections, a short brief and the stages you handled, with images compressed and sized for each screen so a page of twenty photographs still loads quickly on a phone.
Services Mapped to the RIBA Stages
Your services set out against the RIBA Plan of Work, from feasibility and concept design through planning and technical design to construction and handover, so a client can see what each stage involves.
Planning and Building Regulations
Plain-English guides to permitted development, planning applications, pre-application advice, conservation areas, listed buildings and building regulations approval, answering the questions homeowners search for months before they are ready to appoint anyone.
Initial Consultation Requests
A consultation request form that asks for the project type, location, rough budget band and timing, or a booking link straight into your diary, so the first conversation starts with the facts.
Accreditations, Awards and Press
ARB registration numbers, RIBA Chartered Practice status, BIID membership for interior designers, awards and press features shown where clients look and linked to the source, with each logo used only as the body permits.
Typography and Whitespace
A restrained layout, a grid that gives photographs room and type chosen to sit quietly beside your work, because an architect's website is read as a sample of the practice's judgement.
The Pages an Architecture Practice Website Needs
- Home. A handful of your strongest projects at full width, one line on what you do and for whom, and a route to an initial consultation, with your ARB and RIBA details further down.
- Projects. A filterable index by type, such as extensions, new houses, refurbishments, interiors and commercial, so a homeowner sees homes and a developer sees developments, each leading to a full case study.
- Project case studies. One page per project with large photographs, plans, sections and sketches, the brief, the constraints, the planning route and the stages you handled, plus credits for the photographer, engineer and contractor.
- Services and process. What you offer at each RIBA stage, how an appointment works, how fees are structured and what a client needs to have ready, written for someone who has never worked with an architect before.
- Planning and building regulations. Guides to permitted development, full planning applications, conservation areas and building regulations, with your local knowledge of the councils you work with most. These pages bring in searches before anyone is ready to appoint.
- Studio. The people, their registrations and qualifications, how the practice approaches a brief and what it is like to work with you, with real photographs of the team rather than a wall of headshots.
- Contact and consultation. A consultation request form with project type, location and budget band, phone and email, and a note on what happens next, so a nervous first-time client knows what they are starting.
Not sure how many pages you need? Our guide to what pages a business website should have walks through each one, and every project starts with a page plan agreed before any design work begins.
Trust, Accreditations and Compliance for Architects
Clients hand an architect their home, their savings and a year of their lives, and in this profession the title itself is regulated. Your website has to show that you are entitled to it, that you are insured and that your work is what you say it is:
- ARB registration. The title architect is protected by law in the UK and only people on the Architects Registration Board's register may use it, and ARB has rules on when a business may use it in its name. We show each architect's registration number.
- RIBA Chartered Practice. Chartered Practice status is voluntary, has its own criteria and comes with a logo that only accredited practices may display. If you hold it, we show it, link your RIBA profile and keep the branding to the institute's rules.
- Interior designers and BIID. Interior designer is not a protected title, which makes membership of the British Institute of Interior Design, and its registered designer status, worth showing clearly. The same goes for any other professional body your team belongs to.
- Insurance and appointment terms. ARB's code expects practising architects to hold adequate professional indemnity insurance, and clients want to know how an appointment works: the stages, the fee basis and what happens if the project stops after planning.
- Honest projects and credited photography. Each case study should say which stages you handled, credit the photographer and name the engineer and contractor, and work done at a previous practice should be described as such. Clients and other architects notice.
How People Find Architects Online
Residential clients search slowly and locally. "Architects [town]", "house extension architect" and "loft conversion architect near me" are typed by people who have been saving images for months and are nervous about planning and cost, and they will open every practice in the results. The Google Business Profile listings matter here, so the profile needs project photographs and reviews, and the website needs a page that answers the planning question they are secretly asking.
Much of the discovery happens on image platforms first. People save photographs on Houzz, Instagram and Pinterest, trace them back to the practice and arrive at the website expecting the same work at the same quality, with an obvious next step. Houzz reviews and the RIBA Find an Architect directory send visitors too, and anyone who has read about the protected title may check the ARB register before they call.
Developers and commercial clients find you differently, through recommendation, previous collaborators and sector searches such as "residential architects for developers", and they want to see comparable projects, planning track record and the team's capacity. Interior designers are found through "interior designer [town]" and the same image platforms. The decisive moment is the same for all of them: the case study they open has to show the work properly, and the next step has to be a low-pressure conversation.
Every website we build includes the search engine foundations: page titles written around the searches your customers make, fast loading, mobile-first layouts, a sitemap and a structure that matches your Google Business Profile. Our guide to getting found on Google explains what to do after launch.
Already Have a Website? Signs It Needs Replacing
Many practices have a website built on a portfolio template years ago, with projects added as thumbnails ever since and the words untouched. If any of these sound familiar, the site is selling your work short:
- Your best projects appear as small thumbnails or a slideshow nobody waits for, so the work never gets the space it deserves.
- Pages take seconds to load because the photographs are uploaded at full size, and visitors on a phone give up.
- The template is shared with hundreds of other studios, so your site looks like theirs rather than like your buildings.
- Nothing explains the RIBA stages, planning or fees, so homeowners cannot tell whether they can afford you and never ask.
- Adding a project means waiting for a designer, so the most recent work on the site is three years old.
- Your ARB and RIBA details, awards and press are missing or buried, and the team page shows people who have moved on.
Our website redesign service replaces dated or underperforming sites while protecting the search rankings you have built up, and the website redesign guide explains how to decide between a refresh and a rebuild. Launching a new architecture practice instead? Start with our startup architects website design page.
What Clients Say
"Been working with Matthew at DigitalPod to apply and build upon our existing website. Our business needs to display the artwork and present it really well for our client, DigitalPod have completed every task we have asked of them and more. We have in the past suffered from bad website developers yet Matthew and his company are a total delight to work with and I can Highly recommend him and his company. We have also intrusted them to keep working on our website also to complete SEO projects and look forward to a long business relationship. Thank you very much indeed to DigitalPod."
"I have worked with quite a few web developers but digitalpod are one of the very best I have ever used. From ideas to visuals and to final coding. The project just effortlessly flowed."
"We now have been using Digipod for our websites and logo designs for over five years. I have to say that everything that they produce is of the highest quality. Our websites receive relevant and worthwhile enquiries, with new projects handled with consideration and professionalism."
Architects Website Design Questions
How many projects should the website show?
Fewer than you think, shown properly. Six to ten strong case studies with full photography, drawings and a clear account of what you did will convince a client faster than forty thumbnails, and a filter by project type lets homeowners and developers find what is relevant. We build the project pages so new work can be added and older work retired, through the admin dashboard if you have one.
Will large photographs make the site slow?
Not if they are handled properly, which is where hand-coding earns its keep. Each photograph is stored once and served in several sizes and modern formats, so a phone downloads a small version and a large monitor gets the full one, and images below the fold load only as the visitor reaches them. The result is a page that looks like a print portfolio and still loads in a moment on a mobile connection.
Should we explain our fees on the website?
You do not need to publish figures, but you should explain the basis. Homeowners have usually never appointed an architect and have no idea whether fees are a fixed sum, staged payments or linked to the construction cost, and silence makes them assume the worst and never enquire. A page that explains how fees are structured by stage and what is included reduces wasted enquiries and reassures the right ones.
Can clients book an initial consultation online?
Yes. A consultation request form that captures the project type, location, budget band and timing is within the starting price and gives you enough to decide whether to offer a meeting, and a booking link into your diary can sit alongside it. Full online booking with several diaries, reminders and video links is quoted on scope. Most practices prefer the request form, because a short call before any meeting saves everyone's time.
Our portfolio site is on a template subscription. Can you replace it?
Yes. Portfolio templates are fine to start with, but they show every studio's work the same way and the subscription never ends. Our website redesign service rebuilds the site around your projects, with a layout designed for your photography rather than a theme's, redirects every old address so the visibility you have earned carries over, and hands you a site you own.
More answers in our FAQ. See what a architecture practice website costs on our architects website design prices page, or, if you are just starting out, read about startup websites for architects.
Guides to Planning and Costing Your Website
Other Sectors We Work With
We design websites for established businesses and new ventures across the UK. See how we approach other sectors.
Get a Fixed Quote for Your Architecture Practice Website
Tell us about your architecture practice, your customers and what the website needs to do, or book a call with our senior software engineer to talk it through. Everything runs online, wherever in the UK you are based, and we reply personally with a clear, fixed price.