The Brief
A&D Wejchert had set themselves the goal of creating a book which would best capture the essence of the practice. This book would be designed to display their work over the last 44 years, to show both the origins and evolution of the practice over the decades.
In conjunction with the book A&D Wejchert took the opportunity to rebuild their website. Naturally, while mirroring the themes of the book, the website would continue to grow and any design undertaken would have to allow for expansion and extra functionality in future revisions.
The Development
A website cannot be a straight copy of a book because by their very nature there are different elements in play which must be catered for; website functionality is far more complex than a book, and while technologies allow for a vastly different user experience user interaction must remain intuitive. These are all important considerations but they must not overwhlem the defining vision of the site: to reflect the ethos of the practice.
Nexus451 began by consulting with A&D Wejchert, listening to their ideas and arriving at an understanding of what they wanted to achieve. A project team was then put in place - account handler, project manager, designer and programmers - and everything was planned for and finally agreed.
A mountain of information was made available by A&D Wejchert and access to key decision makers was prompt, allowing for rapid feedback and clarification. With such a tight deadline it was vital that both sides worked as a team: like minded people who all understood the value of functional design space.
The Result
By imparting the evolution of the core beliefs of A&D Wejchert - the desire to find a balance between functional requirements and aesthetic coherence - in a way that is useable and engaging the ethos of the practice is strengthened in the online environment.
Client Testimonial
In 2007, A&D Wejchert started the process of making a book, which would capture the essence of the practice, and showcase projects both built and un-built from the last 44 years.
This process extracted a rich and colourful archive of material, all of which was scanned in high resolution for the creation of the Book.
At the same time, our existing website, originally designed in 2003, was becoming small and outdated as technology moved on, and it was decided to embark on the process of creating a fresh new website, which would benefit from the vast volumes of digital material now available.
Appointment of Nexus 451
Once it was agreed the project would proceed, we interviewed several firms all with excellent reputation, and studied the websites of our contemporaries as well as forming a brief for the new website.
Nexus 451 stood out head and shoulders above the competing firms in the selection process, and demonstrated a deep understanding of the practice, our existing websites problems, the ability to extend our brief beyond our expectations, and had no problem working within our budget, and our tight programme.
Mick O Dwyer's creative team provided a positive conceptual overview of the formation of the site, with an eye on design, usability, and the image of our company and our design ethos that would be projected, while Niall Curran amazed us with what was possible, and achievable, while not being overly technical.
The website had to be easy to navigate, easy to update, and organise a vast amount of information, images and drawings, while presenting them in a controlled and well designed format.
Design Development
The design concept was ‘evolution, not revolution’ where the new website would loosely maintain the structure and palette of the old website, but would be much richer in content, easy to navigate, larger, full of colour and movement.
As designers ourselves, we were thrilled with the initial draft design Nexus tabled, which met our intensions exactly, much more refined and understated than we had perhaps been expecting. They got it right first time, which is a rarity in Architectural Design Development.
Once the structure, look and feel of the Website were quickly signed off, a sample Project page was developed, containing basic information at first glance, but digging deeper, produced a wealth of drawings, media, and images.
The image carousel is one of the main features of the site, a 3D interactive solution to part of our brief problem. As some projects have more photos than others, this device developed specially for A&D Wejchert, allowing its users to interact with the site, and browse the images of the projects, and we feel it is a particularly beautiful feature of the site, which adds movement, interactivity, and depth.
As 70+ projects quickly followed, and with our deadline looming, Niall, Jonathan, Paul, Billy, and others worked around the clock to complete the site in time for our book launch, where the site was exhibited for the first time on June 24th 2008.
Our clients and consultants, who attended the launch, expressed much admiration for the website, and we were delighted to see our clients browsing and discussing their own projects with others at the launch event, with many guests asking to meet the web designers and congratulate them on their success.
Conclusion
Nexus 451 extended our own understanding of what was possible beyond our imagination, and the resulting website greatly exceeded our expectations. We found them pleasant to work with, meeting deadlines with ease, and we look forward to a working relationship with them into the future.
Graham Dwyer MRIAI
Partner
A&D Wejchert & Partners Architects.