Responses by Bastien Allard, senior art director, Locomotive; Sucha Becky, executive creative officer, Design Army; Frédéric Marchand, president and creative director, Locomotive; and Pum Lefebure, chief creative officer, Design Army.

Background: The McALPINE website was created to showcase the architectural firm’s extraordinary projects and the poetic soul behind each one. It’s designed for a refined audience—clients, collaborators and admirers of timeless design—inviting them into a minimalist, editorial world. The experience emphasizes photography, cinemagraphs and sound to evoke emotion, creating a space where each project can breathe and resonate.

Challenges: One of the most nuanced challenges of the project was translating the essence of McALPINE’s art books into a digital format. Its printed volumes—rich, tactile and quietly cinematic—carry an emotional weight that’s hard to replicate on screen. We weren’t just referencing their aesthetic; we were chasing a feeling.

The intimacy of the photography, the deliberate pacing of the page turns, the whitespace that invites pause—all of it became a benchmark for the site’s design language. We treated the website like a living book: slow to reveal, rich in texture and guided by a quiet rhythm.

Design core: The use of a large photography grid immediately grabs the attention of visitors, creating a visually stunning first impression. Each project is showcased in high-resolution images, allowing users to appreciate the intricate details and craftsmanship of McALPINE’s designs at a glance.

Negative space is used deliberately to highlight contrast and give the content room to breathe. Cinemagraphs and subtle ambient audio enrich the mood and create an immersive rhythm throughout the journey.

Navigation structure: We were inspired by McALPINE’s beautifully produced art books that are published every few years. The site mirrors the feeling of turning pages in a finely crafted volume. Navigation is intentionally minimal and linear, with an emphasis on storytelling flow. The layouts and pacing borrow from the print world to create a digital experience that feels tactile and elegant.

Design process: This wasn’t about building a website; it was about crafting an atmosphere—about designing a digital space that makes you feel something, just like stepping into one of McALPINE’s homes. From the architecture to the strong photography, we explored how sound and movement could shape a distinct ambiance. That exploration guided every design decision—from the interaction design to the visual tone, ensuring the experience was not only beautiful but emotionally rich and sensory-driven.

Alternate paths: If we could start the site over, we’d take a different approach to the cinemagraph elements. Initially, we explored using AI to generate subtle video movement from static images—an idea that felt conceptually aligned with McALPINE’s cinematic tone. However, the process proved more complex than anticipated. The original assets, while beautiful, were limited in format and composition, making them less than ideal for AI-driven motion. In hindsight, we would have planned for bespoke video content from the beginning to achieve the level of refinement and atmosphere we were aiming for.