Monolith - Architecture portfolio template

About Monolith

Monolith is a one-page portfolio template for urban designers, landscape architects and public-realm practices - anyone whose work is a place people walk through, and whose proof is a plan. It is built around one idea borrowed from the drawing board: the figure-ground. Every project on the page hangs as a pair, the photograph of the built space butted to a panel carrying its own black figure-ground plan, with the location and year printed beneath it. The panel swaps sides plate by plate, so the whole wall reads like a study sheet.

The page keeps its words to a minimum and lets the work carry it. Under a centered name-and-links header, the project wall opens the site with ten built spaces. A run of wide image bands names the fields of work - squares, streets, waterfronts, parks - each labeled from the margin, never over the picture. A short about strip pairs the designer's portrait with the plan of their own block, one paragraph and a row of tag chips beside it. A ruled commission list leads with the cities the work was for, and a quiet underlined form closes the page.

Behind the wall sits the Portfolio app: ten galleries of eight to ten photographs each, filed under four categories, and every gallery closes on its figure-ground plan. The masonry index page carries a category rail, and each project opens as a single narrow column of captioned images.

The design stays out of the way: white ground, ink text, hairline rules, square corners, no shadows, and one marker-blue accent on links and buttons - the color of the sketch marker on a masterplan. Type is Assistant throughout, with headings barely larger than the body. Swap the plans for your own drawings, diagrams or before-and-afters and the device still holds.