Website design for developers and design firms
A visual studio's website is judged from the very first page. Lotuz builds corporate websites and real estate project websites with built-in image presentation, 360 virtual tours and project portfolios — the things we already do every day.
- Mobile-first, because most visitors see you on a phone first
- CMS handover so you can update the site yourself
- 360 virtual tours and project library built in, no third party needed
The first meeting happens without you in the room
Before a developer ever calls you, they have already opened your website and closed it. The first round of screening happens in a few dozen seconds, with no one from your team there to explain, and nobody ever tells you they ruled you out.
For a visual studio, that screening is especially harsh: the website is the work sample. A slow page, images that break up when zoomed, or a layout that falls apart on mobile isn't read as "the website isn't great" — it's read as "this studio doesn't do good visuals".
The six things that decide this first round have almost nothing to do with the text: does the page open fast or slow on mobile data · do images hold detail up close · do you have to zoom in to read on a phone · how many clicks does it take to find a specific project · is there proof of real built work or only self-promotion · and finally, is there a way to get in touch without filling in a long form.
This page explains how we build websites that get those six things right. Lotuz's advantage is that the heaviest parts — imagery, 360 virtual tours, interactive floor plans — are things we make ourselves, so nothing is stitched together from multiple suppliers and nobody is left blaming anyone when something goes wrong.
The websites we build
The six criteria below show how the types differ in lifecycle and operation, and therefore in structure and maintenance cost.
Corporate website
A credentials site for developers or design firms: company profile, project portfolio by category, news and careers. Long-lived and regularly updated.
Single-project website
A site built for one sales launch, focused on conversion: units, floor plans, amenities, construction progress and registration form. See details on the project website with integrated tour page.
Portfolio for design firms
A project showcase for architecture firms, prioritizing fast loading of large images and a layout that never overpowers the work.
Image and video library
A collection of renderings, photos of built projects and promotional films, filterable by category and year.
Vietnamese – English bilingual pages
Two language versions on one content management system, for companies with international clients or partners.
360 virtual tour and interactive floor plan integration
Built-in interactive components made by Lotuz itself, not stitched together from other suppliers.
Components we embed directly, never outsourced
This is the practical difference between hiring a pure web agency and hiring a visual studio to build your website. The four components below are products Lotuz makes every day, so adding them to your website is in-house work, not a subcontract.
Interactive 360 virtual tour
The four tours below run on our own infrastructure. Adding one to your website means pasting a snippet of code — no third-party embed policies and no monthly subscription fees.
- No separate contract with a tour provider
- Tour edits and website edits through one point of contact
Interactive Masterplan
A digital site model that lets visitors hover over each zone to see its details, placed directly on the project page. See this service on the interactive masterplan page.
- Zone data updated by you
- Runs on phones, nothing to install
Filterable image gallery
Hundreds of project images organized by category, type and year, loaded progressively so the page stays fast. Pure web agencies often handle this carelessly because they aren't used to working with large-format images.
- Properly compressed images that keep detail when zoomed
- Filter by category and year
Promotional films and renderings
If you don't have enough imagery for the website, we produce it too, rather than leaving pages empty or using stock photos that aren't your project.
- One contract for both imagery and website
- Images of your actual project, not stock photos
Three types of website, six criteria for choosing the right one
| Lifecycle | Corporate: many years, updated continuously. · Single project: tied to a sales launch, then almost static. · Portfolio: many years, updated with each completed project. |
|---|---|
| What makes or breaks it | Corporate: finding what you need quickly. · Single project: lead conversion rate. · Portfolio: display quality of large-format images. |
| Content volume | Corporate: many pages, many sections. · Single project: few pages but heavy on interactivity. · Portfolio: little text, lots of images. |
| Who runs it after handover | Corporate: the marketing team posts regularly. · Single project: hardly anyone touches it after launch. · Portfolio: the architects themselves add new projects. |
| Annual maintenance cost | Corporate: steady, because content is updated continuously. · Single project: low; many projects take the site down once sales close. · Portfolio: low, mostly image hosting. |
| Signs you are choosing the wrong type | Commissioning a corporate website that only talks about one project on sale · commissioning a project website and planning to reuse it for the next project · commissioning a portfolio but then needing registration forms and an inventory table. Each of these signs leads to a rebuild within a year. |
Interactive components — try them now
The four tours below were built and are hosted by Lotuz. This is exactly the kind of component embedded directly into your website, so you can judge the quality before you sign.
Existing imagery for the website
A great website needs images of the actual project, not stock photos. These are the project types we have delivered — if you don't have enough images, this work is done under the same contract as the website.
Timeline
Two clearly marked checkpoints. We approve the design as mockups before any coding, because changes at that stage cost a fraction of changes after the pages are built.
Agree on structure and content
Together we lock the sitemap, content inventory and user journey before design starts. This is also when we settle the website type against the six-criteria table above.
Interface Design
We build the interface to your brand identity, for both desktop and mobile.
Development and content loading
We build the pages, integrate the interactive components and load the content you provide.
Testing across devices
Tested on phones, tablets and desktops; load speed measured with real images, not lightweight placeholders.
Training and handover
We train your staff to run the content management system and hand over the top-level admin account, source code and documentation under the terms of the contract.
Inputs and deliverables
You provide
- Brand identity: logo, color palette and typefaces
- Company introduction and project profiles
- Project imagery, or commission Lotuz to produce it
- Domain name, or authorization for us to register it on your behalf
- List of languages needed
Lotuz delivers
- A fully functional, mobile-first website
- Content management system with top-level admin account
- Search-engine-ready structure and social sharing cards
- SSL certificate and scheduled backups
- Source code and data under the agreed terms
Limits we state up front
Stated up front so you don't discover them halfway through, and so the contract leaves no room for dispute.
Within Lotuz's scope
- Corporate websites, project websites and portfolios.
- Image galleries, films and interactive components produced by Lotuz itself.
- A standard technical SEO foundation: structure, title tags, sitemap, load speed.
- Bilingual pages on a shared content management system.
- Registration forms that send submissions to your inbox.
Out of scope
- Multi-vendor marketplaces — these need account systems, payments and reconciliation, which is an entirely different kind of software.
- App store apps — we build sites that run in the browser; we don't develop mobile apps.
- Custom CRM software — we can connect the website to your existing system, but we don't build a new one.
- Running marketing and advertising — we hand over the tools; we don't run campaigns for you.
- Guaranteed search rankings — we get the technical side right, but rankings depend on content and ongoing activity, so we don't promise specific positions.
Build costs and running costs
We don't publish a price, because the scope of the three packages below varies widely. More important than the figure is that we quote both parts together: the initial build and the annual maintenance, so you can calculate total cost of ownership instead of seeing only the upfront part.
| Package | Scope | Annual maintenance |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | A project showcase for design firms: home page, filterable project portfolio, detail page for each project, about and contact. | Low — mainly the domain, image hosting and SSL certificate. |
| Corporate | Everything in the package above, plus a company profile, dedicated service pages for each offering, news, careers and an optional bilingual version. | Moderate — content is updated regularly, so ongoing technical support is needed. |
| Project launch | A site for one project, focused on conversion: interactive floor plans, embedded 360 virtual tour, construction progress, registration form and thank-you page. | Low — many projects take the site down once sales close; if kept, only domain and hosting fees remain. |
- We work under contract, issue VAT invoices and bill against sign-off milestones.
- We don't use the phrase "lifetime warranty": the scope and duration of support are written into the contract as specific figures.
- If you order imagery or a 360 virtual tour alongside, that work is priced on its own service's rate card, not added to the website price.
FAQ
Why not hire a specialist web agency to save money?
Who owns the source code after handover?
Will pages with lots of renderings be slow?
Can we update the content ourselves, or do we have to come back to Lotuz?
Whose name are the domain and hosting registered under?
Is the website search-engine friendly?
Will the website stop working when the support period ends?
We already have a website and just want a redesign?
What if we don't have project images yet?
Capabilities and technology
Lotuz Studio does not rely only on off-the-shelf commercial software. We build our own in-house tools for our own workflow — the practical reason we can shorten timelines and keep pricing stable.
Lotuz.AI — our in-house AI toolkit for Photoshop
Controlled image generation, relighting and resolution upscaling, running directly inside Photoshop. It is a commercial product on public sale at lotuz.ai.
- What you get: a much shorter post-production stage, so we can take on rush requests too
A sync bridge between SketchUp and 3ds Max
An in-house tool that pushes changes from a SketchUp model to a 3ds Max scene while keeping the materials and lighting setup already in place.
- What you get: mid-project design changes do not force a scene rebuild from scratch, so the schedule does not slip
AI image processing that runs on our own workstations
Background removal, selection and edge refinement are processed locally in our office; files are never uploaded to third-party cloud services.
- What you get: unreleased project files never leave our systems
Our own 360 tour management system
We build and manage tours ourselves on krpano, including multi-resolution image tiling so tours open fast even on weak connections.
- What you get: tours you control yourself, with no dependence on a foreign platform subscription
A ten-person team doing the work directly
The person you talk to is the person who does the work. No call center, no coordination middlemen, no handoff to a third party.
- What you get: focused technical feedback from the very first conversation
Multi-format input files
We accept models from SketchUp, Revit, 3ds Max and Rhino, as well as CAD drawings. For projects without a model, 3D modeling is quoted as a separate item.
- What you get: no file conversion needed before sending your documents
Discuss your website
Please contact us on Zalo or call directly. We will reply with a proposed sitemap and a budget range.
- Website type: corporate, single project or portfolio
- Existing website or a completely new build
- Number of languages needed
- Interactive components you want to integrate
- Whether you already have project imagery or need Lotuz to produce it