Building a Client-Ready Architecture Site with Archex

The last time I rebuilt an architecture studio website, I was stuck in that awkward middle ground: too many ideas, not enough structure. I knew the site needed to feel like a real studio lobby—minimal, confident, and quietly premium—but my previous generic theme kept turning everything into a boring corporate layout. That’s when I decided to rebuild the project around Archex - Architecture & Interior WordPress Theme, and this article is basically my field notes from that process.

I’m writing this as a site administrator first, designer second. My priority wasn’t “pixel art for Dribbble,” it was: can I actually launch, maintain, and extend this site without fighting the theme every week?

The Problem: Beautiful Projects, Boring Website

If you work with architecture or interior brands, you probably know this pain:

• The studio’s work is stunning, but the site looks like a generic business template.

• Portfolio images are great, but the layout makes them feel small or cluttered.

• Case studies get reduced to a few bullet points and a gallery.

• Navigation feels like a leftover from a random corporate theme.

That’s exactly where I started.

My client’s studio had:

• Strong visual identity: clean lines, muted tones, beautiful photography.

• Projects spanning residential, commercial, and interior concepts.

• A clear need to show process, not just finished shots.

But our old theme was built for “any business.” It gave me a dull hero banner, generic service boxes, and portfolio grids that didn’t respect aspect ratios or whitespace. Every time I tried to push the design towards a gallery feel, I had to hack around the defaults.

I wasn’t looking for a theme with more “features.” I was looking for a theme whose defaults already understood architecture and interiors.

Why Archex Caught My Attention

When I first installed Archex on a test site, a few things stood out immediately:

• The typography felt architectural—precise and balanced, not playful or overly decorative.

• The spacing gave each project room to breathe.

• Portfolio layouts were clearly built around high-quality imagery.

• The overall structure assumed “studio website” rather than generic business.

It sounds subtle, but for architecture, subtlety is the whole brand.

I didn’t want a theme that shouted; I wanted one that quietly directed attention to the work itself. Archex does that by default. As a site admin, that matters because it means fewer manual overrides, fewer layout battles, and faster launches.

My Setup Workflow: From Blank Install to Studio-Level Site

Let me walk through how I approached the build with Archex. I’ve done enough theme setups to know that if I don’t have a clear order of operations, I end up chasing details instead of shipping.

1. Site Skeleton First, Visual Polish Later

With Archex, I started by mapping the key pages I knew I’d need:

• Home

• Projects (main portfolio archive)

• Single Project template

• Services / What We Do

• About / Studio Profile

• Contact & Location

Instead of obsessing over colors and font tweaks right away, I spent my first session just stitching together the structure Archex already offers: hero blocks, portfolio sections, service grids, and testimonial areas. I used the default styling so I could see the “intended” flow.

This helped me answer a key question:

Could I represent the entire studio story without custom coding anything?

With Archex, the answer was yes, and that alone made it worth keeping.

2. Turning the Homepage into a Digital Lobby

The homepage is where Archex felt most tailored to architecture.

I used it to create a “digital lobby” with:

• A calm hero section: large project visual, minimal copy, and a clear call-to-action.

• A quick studio statement: 2–3 short lines about the studio’s design philosophy.

• A featured projects strip: 3–6 recent works with clear titles and categories.

• A services snapshot: architecture, interior, renovation, or concept design.

• A subtle testimonial block from key clients.

The theme’s layouts made this flow natural. I didn’t need to invent new sections; I just had to populate the ones Archex already provided.

From an admin perspective, it was refreshing not to wrestle with conflicting design systems. Archex is opinionated in the right way: it assumes you want order, not chaos.

Portfolio: Where Archex Really Earns Its Place

For architecture and interiors, the portfolio isn’t a “feature”—it is the website. So I judge themes harshly here.

Archex’s portfolio system let me:

• Organize projects by type (residential, commercial, hospitality, interior, concept).

• Highlight hero shots without cropping them into awkward shapes.

• Keep a consistent grid that still felt dynamic.

• Use filters to let visitors quickly narrow down the projects they care about.

Single Project Pages That Feel Like Case Studies

The single project template was the feature that made me stop and go: “Okay, this is made for architects.”

For each project I could:

• Start with a full-width hero image or a split layout.

• Add a concise project overview: location, type, year, role.

• Split content into sections: brief, challenges, concept, process, result.

• Interleave text and imagery in a way that feels curated instead of pasted.

Once I got into a rhythm, every new case study followed a consistent structure. That’s gold for long-term maintenance. Future content won’t break the site’s visual system, because the template enforces just enough discipline.

Services Page: Explaining the Studio Without Overloading

Architecture and interior studios often struggle to explain services without either:

• sounding like legal contracts, or

• sounding too vague to be trusted.

Archex helped me find a middle ground. I used its service layouts to:

• Present each core service with a short description and a single strong visual.

• Add small, readable bullet lists for deliverables.

• Link services mentally to specific projects (“see this applied in X residence”).

The design supports a consultancy-style tone: focused, not salesy. For a lot of architecture firms, that tone is exactly what feels natural.

About Page: Making the Studio Human

The “About” or “Studio” page in Archex is more than a block of text and a team photo.

I turned it into:

• A short founding story (why the studio exists).

• A clear statement of design principles.

• Team highlights with roles and expertise.

• A modest timeline of milestones or awards.

The theme’s section structure made it easy to balance storytelling with visual hierarchy. Everything stayed clean, and I didn’t end up with the dreaded “wall of text.”

Contact & Inquiry Flow: Practical Details Done Right

I’ve seen so many beautiful portfolio sites fall apart at the contact stage. Either the form is buried, or it looks like an afterthought.

With Archex, I:

• Placed a well-styled contact section on the homepage for quick inquiries.

• Used a dedicated contact page with clear inputs and minimal distractions.

• Added practical info like office location, service regions, and response times.

Small detail that I appreciated: the contact layout doesn’t try to be clever. It’s simple, readable, and trustworthy—exactly what you want when someone is about to send you project details.

Mobile Experience: Where Architecture Meets Reality

Let’s be honest: a lot of prospective clients will visit an architecture site on their phone—often while commuting, traveling, or sitting in someone else’s space and thinking about their own.

So I tested Archex hard on mobile.

What worked well:

• Project thumbnails resized gracefully; no weird cropping or squishing.

• Text remained readable without zooming.

• Buttons and navigation elements were easy to tap.

• Long case study pages still felt calm and scrollable, not overwhelming.

From a site admin perspective, it was a relief not to open the mobile version and see my carefully-organized layouts crumble. Archex keeps its structure across screen sizes in a way that feels deliberate.

Performance and Maintenance: Not Just a Pretty Template

Visuals matter a lot for architecture, but as an admin, I cared just as much about ongoing maintenance.

Some practical observations:

• Even with high-quality imagery, page load times remained reasonable when I optimized images properly.

• Archex’s structure made it easy to reuse blocks across pages, which keeps the site consistent.

• Updating content—new projects, new services, updated team info—felt like a routine task, not a rebuild.

And because the theme is clearly geared toward design studios, I didn’t have to strip out irrelevant features made for other industries.

How Archex Fits into a Broader Theme Strategy

I don’t treat themes as one-off purchases anymore. I treat them like tools in a toolbox. The question is never “is this the perfect theme forever?” but “is this the right tool for this type of site?”

Archex has basically become my go-to when:

• the client is an architecture or interior studio,

• the work is highly visual and detail-sensitive, and

• the brand prefers calm, minimal, structured design.

When I need more general-purpose options or want to compare layouts, I keep a curated list of Multipurpose Themes that I audit based on how flexible they are for other types of clients. But for architecture-specific builds, Archex sits in a more specialized category: it already thinks in plans, elevations, and interior shots.

Lessons I Learned While Building with Archex

If you’re considering Archex for your own project, these are the practical lessons I’d share as a fellow site admin:

1. Start with a Small, Strong Project Set

Don’t try to upload every project you’ve ever done on day one. Instead:

• Choose 5–8 projects that best represent your range.

• Use Archex’s single project template to really tell their story.

• Launch with those, then expand gradually.

The theme’s portfolio structure rewards depth as much as breadth.

2. Use Consistent Photography Styles

Archex looks best when your images are consistent in tone and style. Even basic steps like:

• sticking to similar color grading,

• keeping horizon lines straight,

• balancing wide shots with close details,

will make the overall site feel more curated and high-end.

3. Treat the Website as a Design Extension

Because Archex feels like a natural extension of architectural thinking, it’s worth involving the studio’s designers in decisions like:

• typography direction,

• accent color choices,

• which projects deserve hero status.

You’ll end up with a site that feels less like “marketing” and more like part of the firm’s design language.

Who Archex Is Really For

After living with it on a live project, here’s who I think Archex serves best:

• Small to mid-sized architecture studios that want a serious, minimal, modern presence.

• Interior design teams who need to show mood, materiality, and before/after flows.

• Design-build firms that handle both structure and interiors.

• Freelance architects and interior designers who treat their website like a curated portfolio, not just a card on the internet.

If your brand leans heavily into maximalism or very playful visuals, you might want to bend Archex more than I did. But if your work is clean, refined, and detail-driven, the theme aligns almost perfectly with that energy.

Final Thoughts from a Site Admin’s Perspective

As someone who has installed more themes than I’d like to admit, I’ve become picky. A good architecture theme doesn’t just look minimal; it has to respect content, structure, and everyday admin tasks.

What I appreciated most about Archex is this:

• It doesn’t try to steal the spotlight from the projects.

• It gives you opinionated, well-structured layouts that match how studios think.

• It makes it easy to tell project stories without unnecessary visual noise.

• It stays stable and coherent as you add more content over time.

For my client, the end result was a site that felt like walking into their studio: calm, confident, and focused on the work. For me, as the person maintaining it, Archex turned updates into routine operations rather than mini redesigns.

If you’re sitting in front of an architecture or interior portfolio that deserves better than a generic business layout, building around Archex - Architecture & Interior WordPress Theme is a very solid way to bring that studio identity online without losing your sanity as the admin.