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It’s funny, because I immediately thought of Calatrava’s web site … so I went there and despite (eventually) having very large images of his work, it takes a minimum of 5 clicks to get to anything of substance. Splash > Skip Intro > Projects > Recent Projects > Item. Beautiful but cumbersome.

Oh—and link:

http://www.calatrava.com

Jason,

http://www.owpp.com/ http://www.perkinswill.com/

Decent sites for really great Chicago firms.

...and it’s all flash so you can’t link to a specific project.

We have submitted proposals to design 3 or 4 different arch. firm sites, and lost every time …. EACH TIME they moved forward with a friend or family member of an owner or employee and ended up with EXACTLY the same problems you mention. I think 2 have yet to do anything with the site at all and they were from 2 years ago …

This is a nice one, http://www.llarchitect.com.my ?

They still suffer from small gray type on a white screen, but at least you can see their work.

http://www.shoparc.com

www.martagonzalez.com,

Spanish Architect from Madrid. Only photographs a bit small for me… The rest seems clear and with style.

Oops, here’s the link: http://www.shoparc.com

I totally agree about this!

With the tools available now for digital content creation I want to have a 3D journey into those buildings with certain views annotated by the architectural team behind it.

I want to witness the work not just see it from some sales photo or pre-rendered garbage!

http://www.aja-architects.com is one a designer here just finished. html isn’t great but the design is good.

http://www.nbbj.com is my favorite architecture firm site.

@keith: The architecture community is somewhat split about this. While some agree with you that creating a 3d version of a space for walkthroughs and that kind of thing is good, others think that more abstracted renderings and drawings are better for representing a building. A space will never have the same feeling as a rendering tries to convey, and the problem with “photorealistic” 3d renderings is that it creates unrealistic expectations in the client that the finished space will be exactly as it looks in the renderings.

http://www.treyjordan.com/work.html is a nice simple one

http://www.klein-dytham.com

simple and classic.

this site was intended to marry the aesthetic capabilities of flash with a blog content management system. what do you think?

http://www.pompeiad.com

We at Fingertips designed and build http://www.rvrbv.nl and http://hendriksschulten.nl a few years ago.

If I were to update these design I would probably use bigger images but I’m still very happy with the result.

I like this site: http://www.wilkinsonking.com/

A glance at the mark-up tells you that the site is getting old but it doesn’t look it thanks to the very simple grid.

A thumbnail for each project, a linkable page for each site, large images and no flash navigation flying about the place to get in the way of the work.

One from DHH ’s home country of Denmark: http://www.ltarkitekter.dk/

Now with links you can actually click:

Rijnboutt Van der Vossen Rijnboutt

Hendriks Schulten architecten

Can we self nominate? We are a small archirecture practice in Sydney and use our website to point people to all sorts of things that interest us, including other local architects (architects are notoriously paranoid that someone may find out that there are other architects out there competing with them…) and of course our own work.

Our site: Super Colossal

From my friends at cabedge:

D9 Development

http://dlrgroup.com/

A site I worked on a few years back for a local Austin firm – www.webberstudio.com

Woops! How about a clickable link:

DLR Group

A nifty flash website we did.

No flash anywhere, big photos, but it does have the small text. I kicked and I screamed, but the client wanted it…

Coen+Partners

Maybe it’s because they’re landscape architects.

Try http://www.precadd.com. This is an architect firm that gets it.

I totally agree with this.

Had a client a couple of years ago who was an architecture firm. They started out as a dream client. They knew who their audience was, had great photography of great work, and we had this mutual respect – they worked with clients on designerly things just like we did; they knew how things went. Everything was great through the comp presentation until they had “just a few tweaks”.

Next thing you know they are sending us CorelDraw files and the site ended up horrible. Also because they thought their skills translated to the web, I guess.

I’m not seeing it the same way – ok, most of the Guardian examples are accurate, but there are plenty of medium to larger firms doing ok (although they are all adicted to flash, are they not) such as http://www.mcdowellbenedetti.com/ and the daddy of them all http://www.conranandpartners.com/index.php/work/architecture and even smaller places are putting some usable, navagble content up (http://assemblage.co.uk/). The Guardian critices AHMM (http://www.ahmm.co.uk) but its perhaps the clearest and quickest of the ones I looked at.

Agreed, though, the flasharama is dreadful.

http://www.shealink.com/

Maybe not an architect proper, but an architect among other things. And perhaps not free from all the problems you mention, but a pretty nice site.

Marcus, I love your site. The only thing it needs (IMO) is specifying height for all images so they don’t push down accompanying text.

The website of a Chicago-based architectural firm:

http://www.froelichkim.com/

I would prefer larger text and more obvious way to navigate the project images. The site was made to mimic, as much as possible, their other branding assets (collateral, business cards, client presentations system, etc.)

The print optimization, especially of the project pages, is a nice touch.

A proper link would have been nice:

Froelich Kim | Architecture

Sorry for inconvenience.

http://dpz.com/

Yeah, had a company I used to work for that ended up with a horrid “all Flash” site from hell (http://www.lauckgroup.com/). They didn’t listen to me. Another company I used to work for did and their site ended up much, much better (http://www.omniplan.com). Not perfect but much better than an all Flash one. Really had to work hard to make sure they understood that Flash does not equal a good, standards-based, accessible site. Plus, they wanted to manage the content themselves, which is something that a snazzy, useless Flash site won’t give you.

Having known a good deal of architects, the linked article points the reason why – architects think they are at the top of the design pyramid. The fact that they took a graphic design class for a semester in university makes them think they know all there is to know.

That and I have yet to meet one who wasn’t an arrogant fuck.

It’s not just websites, either. A good deal of them seem to have strange ideas for almost anything and everything else – most certainly including fashion and interior design. Most of them dress like straight up Eurotrash, the Italian kind. And when you go to their offices for a meeting you find out that you inadvertently sat on their “table” and put your laptop on their “chair”.

If there ever was a person who warranted the “eyeroll” emoticon, it would be an architect.

I hear you.

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE going to wedding photographer’s websites and having my browser resized.

I think 37s should have a browser resize when we get to your site. It really makes me want to stay on a website and poke around.

http://www.mospromstroy.com/ here is a construction company that has a really nice website.

K4places.com is pretty nice. A little bloated, but still nice.

Not from 1998: http://www.jeffersonsheard.com

Very large photos, keyboard navigation (use the right / left arrow keys), and short project descriptions are the main features ofCarrilho da Graça’s wesbite, see for instance the German School of Lisbon’s project page (recommended).

You can get to any page on the site with 2 clicks, and the pages focus on one thing, showing you the work. Not the website, not a fantastic flashy effect, but just the work.

http://www.gensler.com – launched march this eary.

@LTL-RC: It’s funny, you seem to only know the most extremely stereotypical architects. I’ve also known quite a lot of architects and none of them are remotely like what you describe.

This is so true – architects seem to have a serious Flash addiction! Time for an intervention. :-)

We just launched the Hariri Pontarini Architects website:

http://hariripontarini.com/

I lost the battle for automatic full screen, and I don’t like that you can’t download the images, let me know what you guys think…

We released this small architects studio website: http://www.rigapartners.com

Not a lot of content, so we worked on the pictures. That’s what people would look at first when coming on an architect website. The website has to be clean and easy.

No Flash, only AJAX and it works with JS disabled.

Sarah Nettleton has a good one.

Just a good site..

http://www.jeremylevine.com/

How about these Swiss guys: http://www.favre-guth.ch/

@Cameron: Too much flashterbation. That is a great term Jason! I couldn’t help but re-use it. The Intro takes way too long to load and the navigation is really confusing. The images are beautiful though!

Not exactly an architect’s site, but I love how they put the user first, not their ego:

Real estate site that specializes in more modern styles:

http://azarchitecture.com/

No flash, big photos for each house, and good information.

http://azarchitecture.com/property_photos.cfm?auto_id=401

http://www.susanka.com/

JF, true that Flash is unwieldy. But they do have a landing page that is way more scannable. Albeit the thumbnails could be bigger: http://www.perkinswill.com/expertise/markets/corpcom.aspx

Cameron, that Hariri Pontarini Architects site is pimp!

Of course, I am biased since our company Fastspot did this project for Purple Cherry Architects in Annapolis, but it was refreshing to have a client who wanted to get away from all the overblown Flash whiz bang. It helps that this architecture firm focuses on “Purpose Driven” design, working with individuals with disabilities. http://www.purplecherry.com

I worked on the Rees Architects website. We were able to talk them out of a big flashy type site. It didn’t meet up to our vision because of problems with the project, but overall it’s an alright site I think.

http://www.snoarc.no/

Snøhetta Architects. Flash that actually makes sense, ability to deep-link, ability to download images and PDFs, and a useful resource overall.

http://pentagram.com

It seems that many fashion designers and large clothing companies suffer from similar problems with their websites; so many of them have mood music playing before you can even click a link.

Architecture isn’t the only profession where websites would deserve Botox injections: have you ever visited DENTISTS ’? It’s amazing! If there’s something they should avoid above all it’s precisely huge photographs of their work… aaargh.

By the way, I found London architect Denna Jones’ website a beautiful example of a bold design with an extreme care to typography. It has also a very unique peculiarity in that it’s a big mashup of all the webapps Denna Jones uses to promote her work—the site itself has no content.

I re-made the website for Austin-based architecture firm Workpod 9 about a year ago, doing away with the flash but still keeping a lot of the interactivity, now using javascript. I think it bucks the trend you’re talking about.

can’t believe no one’s put down wes jones’ site: http://www.jonespartners.com/

sound’s like somebodies building a custom home!

I’m biased since I know both the architect and the site designer, but I like http://www.minday.com/.

If I make a tshirt with the phrase “obfuscatory flashterbation” on it, I will make sure to credit you. SKIP INTRO , maaan.

This sort of thing plagues websites for all of the arts. Not that a decent Flash slideshow isn’t the way to go in some contexts, but having that slideshow embedded in a standards based, easily searchable site with clear navigation and NO soundtrack would be nice.

Ha, this is one of my favorite things to rant about. Another arena for very bad web design is the fashion design world. Specifically, websites for individual labels. Most are completely unusable.

It’s AMAZING to me how many of these sites people have submitted SUCK for almost exactly the reasons listed in the post.

Quit self-promoting, people … you are highlighting your limitations.

http://www.hellermanus.com/

@JF: I see your point, but maybe having a website for architecture is like having a website for perfume. In which case, the worst thing you can do is really try and suggest the website encompasses the feel. Maybe it’s almost done on purpose, like a negative space thing. I can see some merit to that school of thought, though I guess it’s hard to approve of poor usability and flow, even for contrast or slow down purposes.

But can you even hire an e.g. Renzo Piano via his website though? Or is it just for groupies?

Not beautiful like their designs but a very functional site nonetheless:

http://www.loeuf.com/en/index.php

I designed and built this for a friend of mine: www.1meter98.com. Big pictures, client testimonials, keywords for projects and nice URL ’s. We’re still working on some little things to perfect it, like clickable images and cutting the amount of text on each projectsheet in half :) (them architects want to tell way to much details)

Agreed.

http://www.c77studios.com/post/opportunities_missed_a_call_to_architectural_firms/

I couldn’t agree more! I’ve always loved architecture, but every time I see some shelter or design blog link to an architect’s site I detest the unwieldy navigation and gratuitous Flash.

Jason, are you looking to hire an architect? You should offer to trade his services for a 37Signals designed website! Or is the next 37S product going to be a portfolio tool for creatives & design pros to showcase their work… Arts&Crafts?

I think Foster + Partners have done a good job; the pics start off nice and big, but if you go full screen they resize up to go with you. Designed with widescreen displays in mind, too… welcome to the 21st century! Alas, if only they could design buildings that lived up to the promise: I’ve just moved out of one of their apartment blocks that I found appalling to live in, but that’s another story…

I’ve worked in the AEC industry my entire adult life and as both freelancer and inhouse designer have some real horror stories…this post was so cathartic for me.

As the previous commenter noticed most of the links posted were examples of what the article complains about…full screen flash takovers, tiny thumbnails, circa 1998 design. Yipes! I compiled a few that stood out to me:

Omniplan.com jlcg.pt

rees.com particularly delivers wow factor with big photos and trasitions without crazy or slow loading flash although I finding projects was a little hard. Excellent job!

dennajones.com seems to just use a blog and flickr for her site to great effect. Nice low maintenance solution for a single consultant.

1meter98.com was so refreshing, what these other sites should be. Even though it’s not in English it was easy to find projects and delivered big clear images.

My addition: OSKAarchitects.com hasn’t been mentioned yet and is one of the few architecture firms in my area to ditch flash (they used to have the ‘cool’ screen takover flash site…apparently they are stying ahead of the curve). They allow you to enlargen images, which launches a modal slideshow.

I’m in the middle of a redesign project at my firm, which shall remain unnamed for the moment as our Y2K all flash design is still up. Fortunately we have some great leadership at the firm and as the inhouse web developer I’ve been advocating web standards for a couple of years. I even made them sit through a meeting once where we visited a whole bunch of flash sites and made sure they weren’t in my cache. Our CEO cried out “No more flash!!!”...ah yes.

Another tip for you web standards folks…architects are very aware of designing for accessibility in their buildings and this makes an obvious translation to the web – I start there and continue on about SEO . Then mention they don’t want “gimmicks” getting in the way of the important stuff – their buildings.

So, our new site will launch in October…we hired BlueFlavor! I’m so thrilled. Large images, no splash pages, flash only for video…I promise :)

We have the flash opening, but don’t takeover the screen and the viewer is only two clicks away from the portfolio. The image load times could be better, but you are always balancing load time versus quality of the image. It’s not uncommon for clients or other interested parties to clip the image from the website and use in presentations, so it’s always a compromise.

I agree that most architect websites are poorly designed. Then again, as an urban planner in addition to being a licensed architect, I think most of their buildings are poorly designed, as well. One thing that web designers know that architects have trouble with is user friendliness. Top web designers obsess over the UI whereas architects obsess over the form.

The reason being is that the architects that come up with something fresh and new will get published, hopefully gain notoriety, and then get the best commissions. That is the preferred career path of many a young Roark in training. Don’t believe me? Check out Architecture School at hulu.com. Listen to what the client wants and what the people on the street want then contrast that with what the professors ask of the students and what they design. There’s a complete disconnect.

This not only pervades the built environment but everything they touch, including their websites.

http://www.simpers.com/

We actually did the OSKAarchitects site, check out another one we’ve done: Kendall Heaton

Ironically, just finished an architectural firm’s site: http://urbanvision.cc

Weird thing is that it’s always a pain to get photos or images of the architect’s work…

We did work for an architectural firm in our building once.

http://www.3dgllc.com/

Just because you work in some other area of design doesn’t mean you can design a website. I’ve noticed other creative professionals (painters, illustrators, animators, to name a few) can’t design websites either.

This one is not bad: http://www.nathangoodarchitect.com/index.htm

This is an italian architecture website: europaconcorsi.com

http://www.rebeccalow.co.uk/aglow.html

I cant find the actual site, but here is the designers page for the project. I love the simplistic site.

A favourite of mine www.hassell.com.au

We work with a well known modernist Canadian architect on a site that they designed in-house. There wasn’t any convincing them that Flash wasn’t the best choice for their site. So, we built it for them, in Flash, but used content replacement techniques to allow for direct linking to individual pages, readable content and search engine indexable text. I’m pleased with how well the site works, and the client has received a great deal of positive feedback on it, and it’s not a bad looking/functioning site in the end. They were big fans of the Shim Sutcliffe site someone else had posted.

Architects have this great way of looking at things, and I generally admire their perspective and drive when it comes to rationalizing their vision. Many designers could learn a great deal from architects.

As a sidenote, we are also having a house designed by another architect, and I’ve put together a quick blog to chronicle the process. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it and may it provide some insight into your own process, Jason.

BuildingTheWhiteHouse.com

cool!

Local architecture firm we share our studio with:

Herbert + Mason www.herbertmason.com

I built this site for a friend, architect: www.cleinge.com, the idea was to just showcase the work in the simplest way possible and forget the rest…

Its still fantastically easy to make a site like this in comparison to other fields. You’ve got very little copy to collect, and mostly you let the pictures speak.

If they fail as an architect (I wouldn’t want to work for Art Vandalay… if he actually WERE an architect), then you’ve got a whole different problem.

http://www.mkd-arc.com/

Free Green http://www.freegreen.com

Michelle Kaufmann http://www.mkd-arc.com/

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a software architect… clicky

I wonder if all the architects are pissed at people who have houses/buildings that look like they were built long ago. They should be. There’s some ugly houses out there.

Seems architects as a whole don’t understand and/or underestimate the value of a website regarding the promotion of their work.

The guys who designed our office have a semi-decent site: http://www.watersheddesign.com.au/

I had the chance while working for my present employer to work on a couple of architecture and construction websites as an art director/ web designer.

You can check our work out at: BDI Development and RM Dalton.

On each of these we had completely different approaches, where one is a flash based website, that changes around to better show the portfolio and the images inside it’s different shaped bounding box, and the other is a xhtml/css site using lightboxes to better explore showing the images in the bigger size possible inside the page.

I did Catherine Furet’s website a year and a half ago. Some of the aforementioned criticisms apply to it (small text in the sidebar) and I guess lightbox wasn’t the best option out there but overall, I hope it’s clear and usable enough.

http://catherine-furet-architecte.com/ [fr]

This is a good topic. I know quite a few architects, I did webdesign/development for some.

The thing with architects is that they are the experts on anything art/design/technology related.

If it has to do with computers – they’re your people. Who knows IT better than people who use software as advanced as CAD ? If it’s engineering – they know it all. Painting? They could give Picasso a few tips. Abstract art – do you want a theory lecture or a hands on tutorial?. Music – you know what Pink Floyd majored in, right? Web usability? They do that to relax, while sharpening pencils for serious work.

When contracting a website, an architect made sure I understood they could’ve cracked it themselves and were about to, they just didn’t have the time.

They know everything about everything. Just deal with it.

Try Interloop Architecture

I wouldn’t necessarily hold it up as a perfect example, and it’s not even an architecture firm’s site, but I really love what Wallpaper* magazine are doing with interactive floor plans in the architecture area of their site: New residence – Larisa, Greece.

They’re engaging, packed with information and begin to move in the kind of directions I’d love to see architects go on a regular basis. 3D plans without the flashiness of 3D interfaces.

No Flash for London’s Metropolitan Workshop!

http://www.metwork.co.uk/

LTL -RC

“Having known a good deal of architects, the linked article points the reason why – architects think they are at the top of the design pyramid. The fact that they took a graphic design class for a semester in university makes them think they know all there is to know.”

Just like web designers thinking that 3d technology is the best way to represent a project (which I have heard in several meetings from several firms). Just because you look at architecture and like or dislike it, doesn’t mean you understand it or how to represent it. I actually think this is the biggest problem. Two sets of designers that have overlapping designs…..not a good mix.

Architect: “OOOOHHH….flash looks awesome, let’s use it.”

Web Designer: ” OOOOHHH ….3D models look awesome, let’s use it.”

Neither thought is universal, but it shows the disconnection. And believe it or not, architects aren’t the only ones with egos.

Besides, it doesn’t sound like you actually know too many architects. Just throwing out stereotypes.

A colleague of mine did this site for his father’s architecture firm in Toledo. There’s some (in my opinion) tasteful Flash, great photography, and the site degrades well. Worth a look: http://www.duketporter.com/

We recently did some work for an architecture firm with these problems exactly…everything in Flash, impossibly small thumbnails, nav that was constantly moving around, unreadable text that could not be re-sized. We just launched the new site that, we think, addressed the major issues.

Main goals were to clear the visual field in order to feature their work, minimize navigation while keeping it usable and making the entire thing manageable via CMS (they were paying stupid fees for simple text updates to their Flash site).

Lucien Lagrange Architects

My company, Dyad Communications, creates mostly flash websites for classical architects. I think it’s a great use for Flash, as it demonstrates their attention to detail and provides a luxurious, smooth experience.

We just finished a site for Peter Pennoyer Architects, in New York: http://www.ppapc.com/

Expertise in one field does not mean expertise in other fields whether they are related or not.

They may be thinking that because they can design buildings, they can design Websites. Common bias.

I made some functionality for a swedish architect firm that defies what you’re saying: Bergkrantz Arkitekter

http://www.n59.se

Marcus Beale Architects – Clean, simple and easy to navigate

Our friends from B14 recently completed the site for one of the bigger arch firms here in DK (who also work intl.) How would you rate that: http://www.khr.dk

http://www.hjlyons.com

check out this website, www.thedavisexperience.com it is actually a finalist for an Emmy award. no joke…maybe these guys should get out of architecture and do site design instead.

Great site Mike, thanks for putting it up here. Why just show pics when you can entertain as well – and not one button to click. Kudos to Davis.

David I second your comment, and finally a site with sound that doesn’t make me immediately reach for my mute button… cool video and great sound track (sounds like my favorite playlist on my iPod).

Very timely post Jason. As an architect managing the practice’s current website, we’re actually looking for someone to take us from 1998 (well, 2003 to be precise) into the present and produce a “portfolio dominant” site.

We’re after a web standards compliant, non-Flash (prefer AJAX , javascript), non-Microsoft, non-pop-up, non-browser resize dynamic website by someone who actually understands all the things that 37 Signals are on about. Coen + Partners is not too bad, the project pages of Carrilho da Graça are pretty good and Marcus’ Super Colossal is an interesting example of an architectural hybrid blog/portfolio site.

Appreciate it if anyone reading SvN can help me out or make some suggestions for shortlist?

Just found Marks Barfield via CommandShift3. That’s a nice one!

Architects are not the only ones. I’m managing a website for a local literacy project for young people. We have a list of links to authors’ websites. Yipe!

Jason, get off your high horse. Don’t you guys get sick of posting pretentious know it all posts? Your simpleton views on how everyone should live their lives is incredible. Go back to building websites.

Try the danish arcitects; http://www.krydsrum.dk