Grid-driven precision for an architecture firm's digital presence
Client
Embarc
Industry
Architecture / Design
Services
Web Design, Framer Development, Portfolio CMS, Responsive Design
Tech stack
Framer, CMS, Grid System
Year
2024
How AGR Studio designed Embarc's architecture portfolio with a grid-driven layout system, project CMS, and disciplined minimal design on Framer.
Embarc is a design and architecture firm whose physical work speaks of precision, materiality, and spatial awareness. Their website needed to embody these same qualities, a digital space as considered as the buildings they design. The existing site was a generic template that undermined the quality of their portfolio.
We designed a grid-driven Framer site where every element, typography, whitespace, image placement, follows the same disciplined proportional system that governs architectural design. The result is a site that feels like an extension of Embarc's practice, not a separate marketing exercise.
Spatial Design for the Web
Architecture clients evaluate firms partly through the quality of their presentation. A sloppy website implies sloppy drawings. We adopted a strict 12-column grid with consistent vertical rhythm, ensuring every element aligns to a baseline grid, mirroring the precision expected in architectural documentation.
Project categorization was organized by typology (residential, commercial, cultural, mixed-use) and scale, matching how architecture clients think about their own needs.
Minimal by Discipline
The design is aggressively minimal, not as an aesthetic choice, but as a disciplinary one. No gradients, no decorative elements, no competing visual hierarchies. A monochrome palette ensures photography dominates. Typography uses a single family at three weights, creating hierarchy through scale and weight rather than variety.
Project detail pages use a consistent template: hero image, project metadata (location, area, year, typology), description text, and a curated image sequence that tells the spatial story of each building.
Portfolio CMS
The CMS is structured for architectural content: each project has fields for metadata (client, location, area, year, typology, status), a curated image gallery with caption support, and rich text for project narratives. The team can add new projects in under 15 minutes while maintaining the site's visual discipline.
Image handling is critical for architecture, we implemented high-resolution image support with progressive loading, ensuring photographs of building details remain crisp without impacting page performance.
Professional Impact
The redesigned site immediately elevated Embarc's perceived quality. Several new client conversations cited the website specifically as a factor in initial outreach. The CMS empowered the team to keep the portfolio current, with new projects added within weeks of completion rather than waiting for annual website updates.
12-Column
Grid System
Standardized
Project Template
4 Weeks
Timeline
