Lumina Architecture
Lumina was a globally recognized architectural firm winning prestigious awards, yet their website looked like it was built in 2010.
They came to us frustrated because their incredible, high-resolution photography was being compressed and shoved into tiny, rigid grid layouts. Their digital presence completely contradicted their physical work, which was characterized by massive scale, sweeping curves, and dramatic lighting.
We decided to treat the browser window not as a website, but as a digital exhibition space.
We threw out all conventional navigation paradigms and standard UI elements.
The goal was to let the photography speak for itself, creating a minimalist, editorial layout that made the user feel like they were walking through a physical art gallery.
To empower the architects to manage this complex layout, we built a highly customized block-based editor in Sanity CMS.
This allowed them to freely compose project pages without breaking the overarching design system.
On the frontend, we aggressively optimized Next.js Image loading, utilizing edge CDNs to serve massive, uncompressed-looking WebP images instantly, regardless of the user's network speed.
We implemented Lenis smooth scrolling to give the site a heavy, deliberate feel, mimicking the physical weight of concrete and steel. The grid system was completely bespoke, allowing images to overlap and parallax independently on scroll. We also integrated a custom WebGL masking effect that shifts the ambient lighting of the website based on the user's local time (day/night cycle), directly reflecting Lumina's obsession with natural light.
The new digital exhibition space was a massive success, winning 32+ design awards including Awwwards Site of the Month. The immersive nature of the parallax scrolling and high-res imagery increased average dwell time by 180%. The site became a benchmark in the architectural industry, driving a 40% increase in inbound inquiries for massive commercial contracts.
