HALDEN Studio Website Design by Gustafian DHALDEN Studio Website Design by Gustafian D

HALDEN Studio Website Design

Gustafian D

Gustafian D

HALDEN: Designing a Studio Website for a Nordic Architecture Practice


CHALLENGE

HALDEN is a concept Nordic architecture studio I created as a design brief, working between Copenhagen and Oslo on houses, cultural buildings, and adaptive reuse. Most architecture studio websites default to generic portfolio templates that flatten the work into a grid of thumbnails. The challenge was to design a site that behaves like the buildings it presents: heavy, quiet, and deliberate, where typography and pacing carry the identity instead of decoration.

APPROACH

Direction. Translated the studio's material language of concrete, daylight, and restraint into a visual system before designing any layout.
Structure. Wireframed the site as an architecture monograph: manifesto, selected work, project in focus, studio philosophy, practice, and recognition.
Design system. Built a compact system of five colors and two typefaces, pairing heavy grotesque headlines with monospace-style technical annotations.
Motion. Kept animation restrained to scroll-driven reveals, letting mass and imagery lead instead of transitions competing for attention.
Build. Shipped the design as a live, responsive site to validate pacing and scroll rhythm in the browser rather than in static mockups.

RESULT

The site is live at haldenarch.netlify.app as a self-initiated concept, built end to end from wireframe and design system to responsive front-end. It now serves as the anchor piece for my architecture and built-environment web design work, combining my architecture background with product design in a single project.
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Posted Jul 13, 2026

Designed a concept architecture website that replaces generic portfolios with an immersive, editorial experience inspired by Nordic design.