One platform for an architecture firm’s whole body of work

The problem

MVRDV’s work lived in separate places: the public website, the staff intranet, the pressroom and the project archive. Each had its own content and its own way of finding things, for a practice spread across dozens of countries.

What I did

I was part of Team Foster’s development team on the project. My work covered search, the content systems behind the project archive, and the intranet used by the firm’s architects, designers and urban planners.

What we built

• One connected ecosystem across website, intranet, pressroom and digital archive.
• Elasticsearch-backed search and analysis across the project data.
• A content model for an archive of 845 projects in 47 countries.
• An intranet for a team of 250+ people working across time zones.
• A minimal interface that lets the architecture carry the page.

What I learned

• Large-scale data management: complex architectural datasets and their taxonomies.
• Multi-platform integration: several systems presented as one experience.
• International coordination: supporting a global team across jurisdictions.
• The balance between creative design and robust implementation.

What came of it

The experience informed my move into financial technology, where data integrity and system integration became central.