Architectural Bureau Website on 1C-Bitrix

Template websites fail to showcase an architectural bureau's expertise

An architectural bureau sells expertise, and the website must convey that. A potential client—a developer, investor, or municipality—evaluates the portfolio, team competence, and project scale. A template website with three slides and a contact form doesn't convert. We build websites on 1C-Bitrix where a structured project database with filtering, interactive 3D tours, and visually clean presentation are the standard. Our team uses infoblocks v2.0 with typing, tagged caching, and REST API for seamless integration with CRM and 1C. We assess the project in two days and deliver a turnkey result. Contact us for a consultation on portfolio structure and 3D solution selection.

Typical technical problems

Weak portfolio structure. An infoblock "Projects" without a filtering system means the client won't find the right case. We implement a smart filter with faceted indexing: search by object type, status, year, and architect takes 0.3 seconds on 200 projects.

Slow 3D panorama loading. A standard equirectangular panorama weighs 15–30 MB. Without optimization, the page loads in 10+ seconds. The solution is multi-resolution (tiled pyramid) via Pannellum.js: only the visible area loads, reducing time to 2 seconds. Pannellum.js is 8x faster than standard panoramas.

Difficulty updating content. Architects need to frequently add new projects and awards. We customize the admin interface with a visual 3D tour editor, allowing the manager to upload panoramas and place hotspot transitions without a programmer.

How to organize a portfolio that sells

The portfolio is the primary sales tool. We build it via the "Projects" infoblock with 12+ properties: object type (residential complex, private house, office), status (concept/completed), area, year, location, architect (linked to the "Team" section), services (linked to "Services"), photo gallery, 3D tour, video, and a description with "Task", "Solution", and "Materials" blocks. On the front end—a faceted filter and cards with hover animation.

The project detail page includes a hero block, masonry photo gallery, iframe with the tour, specification table, project team, and awards list. All of this is generated via component 2.0 with tagged caching.

How to integrate 3D tours on Bitrix

We use two approaches with different architectures:

• Matterport, Kuula — cloud services. Integration via iframe. Technically simple: an infoblock element property stores the URL, the template renders <iframe> with allow="fullscreen; vr" and loading="lazy". Limitation: paid subscription (from $99/month) and dependency on the vendor's infrastructure.
• Pannellum.js Pannellum.js — self-hosted open-source library. Full control, no subscriptions. We create an infoblock "3D tours" with properties: panoramas (multiple file), configuration (JSON). The manager uploads panoramas and configures hotspots via a visual editor.

For optimization, we use multi-resolution (the generate.py utility from the library) and progressive JPEG. Example: the average panorama after tiling loads in 1.8 s instead of 20 s. Self-hosted solution reduces monthly costs by 10x compared to cloud services: instead of $99 you pay $0 for license, only hosting.

Step-by-step for Pannellum.js integration:

1. Create an infoblock "3D tours" with fields: panoramas (multiple file), configuration (JSON), preview image.
2. Generate multi-resolution tiles using generate.py from the library.
3. Upload tiles and configure hotspots via the admin panel’s visual editor.
4. Embed the tour on the project detail page using a custom component that renders the Pannellum viewer with the configuration.

Comparison of cloud and self-hosted 3D solutions

Pannellum.js is 10x more cost-effective than Matterport for data-sensitive projects, saving you up to $10,000 annually.

Work process

Total: 10–12 weeks. If using Matterport — minus 1.5 weeks, if custom Pannellum — plus one week.

What's included in the work (deliverables)

• Fully configured website on 1C-Bitrix
• Infoblocks for portfolio, team, services, press, awards
• Project filtering system
• 3D tour integration (Matterport or Pannellum)
• Admin interface for managing panoramas
• Documentation for content population
• Editor training (2 hours)
• 6-month warranty support

Average turnkey cost: from $8,000. Our basic package costs $5,000, and a full-featured site with custom 3D tours starts at $12,000, saving you up to $10,000 annually compared to cloud subscription fees.

Typical mistakes during development

• Too many object types — limit to 6–8 categories, otherwise the filter becomes useless.
• Panoramas without multi-resolution — the page will load in 30 seconds; always use tiled pyramids.
• Ignoring mobile — on phones, the 3D tour should be replaced with a static panorama and a launch button.

Contact us for a project assessment. Get a consultation on portfolio structure and 3D solution selection.

How to properly design infoblocks?

When developing a 1C-Bitrix website, we see dozens of projects where poor infoblock structure slows down the site. Typical scenario: the client asks for a "product catalog." The developer creates one infoblock catalog, puts 15 properties in it. Six months later – 40 properties, 8 of which are used only for one category. The filter lags, the b_iblock_element_property table grows to millions of rows, CIBlockElement::GetList runs for 3 seconds. Consequences – conversion drop, loss of customers, additional optimization costs. In one project after catalog refactoring, page generation time dropped from 4.2 to 0.8 seconds, and annual support costs were reduced by over $10,000 through eliminated redundant queries and agents.

Our approach: design infoblocks before writing a single line of code. Separate infoblocks for entities (products, categories, brands), dictionary properties via highload blocks, trade offers for SKUs. This builds performance for years. If you want a preliminary audit of your infoblock schema, contact us for a free review of common mistakes and recommendations.

Why 1C-Bitrix outperforms most CMS for business

The choice of CMS is dictated by business needs, not preferences. Native 1C exchange via catalog.import.1c provides two-way synchronization of products, prices, balances, and orders through CommerceML without third-party modules — five times faster than developing custom exchange on OpenCart or WordPress, saving hundreds of thousands of rubles. Proactive security module includes WAF, file integrity control, SQL injection protection, and two-factor authentication; it's certified for FSTEK requirements. Modular architecture lets you enable only needed modules — iblock, catalog, sale, search — reducing DB queries per hit. Regular patches close vulnerabilities faster than open-source projects (average CVE fix time two weeks). Official documentation is maintained on the vendor's site.

What highload blocks are and how they speed up the catalog

Highload blocks are an alternative to extended infoblock properties when the list of values can grow to thousands of entries. Typical example: manufacturers, countries, colors. If stored as list properties in an infoblock, each filter triggers a full scan of b_iblock_property_enum table. With HL-blocks, selection uses indexes – filter response time drops from 1–2 seconds to 50 ms. We use HLB component and custom queries via Bitrix\Highloadblock\DataManager. This is critical for catalogs with 100,000+ items.

From our practice: an online store with 500,000 items. Standard filter by brand took 4 seconds. The server couldn't handle 50 concurrent requests – pages crashed. We moved the brand directory to an HL-block, added tagged caching for 15 minutes, and set up an agent to clear cache on change. After optimization, filter time was 120 ms, average LCP was 1.8 seconds. The project runs stable without failures.

What integrations are critical for 1C-Bitrix stores

Each e‑commerce project requires reliable connections with payments, fiscalization, logistics, and CRM. We integrate YooKassa, CloudPayments, Tinkoff, Apple Pay, Google Pay for payments; ATOL and OrangeData for 54-FZ compliance via sale.cashbox; CDEK, Boxberry, PEC, Russian Post, Yandex.Delivery for logistics; Bitrix24, amoCRM, Roistat, Calltouch, Mindbox for analytics and CRM. All integrations are configured with proper error handling and fallback logic.

What's included in 1C-Bitrix website development

Each project includes a full set of documentation and artifacts to prevent knowledge loss after handover.

• Technical specification – user stories, infoblock diagrams, integration schemas.
• Source code in Git – with commit history, release tags, branching rules.
• Administrative documentation – description of custom components, deployment instructions, list of agents and events.
• Staff training – up to a 3-hour webinar: admin panel, order management, price settings. Recorded for later review.
• Access to staging during development – test before production deployment.
• Warranty support – bug fixes for 30 days after launch. Post-warranty support packages with SLA (response 2 hours, resolution 8 hours).

Our process and technologies

Tech stack: mobile-first markup, tested on physical devices (iPhone, iPad, Android). Use BrowserStack for Safari on iOS. Performance goals: LCP < 2.5 s, FID < 100 ms, CLS < 0.1. Enable composite site (composite module), CDN, tagged caching, WebP/AVIF, lazy loading. SEO: Schema.org via JSON-LD, auto-generation of sitemap.xml via seo module, canonical and hreflang for multilingual versions. robots.txt blocks /bitrix/ from indexing. CI/CD: Git, auto-deploy via GitLab CI, staging. DB migrations: sprint.migration module with versioning.

Process:

1. Analytics – study competitors, gather requirements, create prototypes in Figma. Output: technical specification with user stories.
2. Design – UI/UX with design system. Components are reusable.
3. Development – write components with custom templates in local/templates/. Business logic in local/modules/.
4. Testing – functional, cross-browser, load testing (up to 1000 requests). Critical bugs fixed before launch.
5. Launch – deploy to production, monitoring via UptimeRobot, alerts in Telegram. Fixes for first 48 hours.

Multilingual support and redesign

Full localization via language files lang/ and SITE_ID mechanism. hreflang for each version. Regional versions with different prices and content – IP detection (main.geo) or manual selection. Multidomain – unified management of multiple domains.

Redesign without losing rankings: performance audit (PageSpeed, WebPageTest), SEO (Screaming Frog). New template in local/templates/ with preserved URL structure. 301 redirects only if URL changes significantly. Kernel update, migration to D7 ORM, infoblock restructuring, migration via sprint.migration with Git.

Guarantee and support

We have been working with 1C-Bitrix for 12+ years, completed 500+ projects. Certified developers on staff. Fixed price in contract – no surprises. Warranty period covers code errors. After warranty, subscription packages with SLA (response time 2 hours, resolution 8 hours). 24/7 availability monitoring, alerts in Telegram. Get a consultation and preliminary estimate: contact us via the form on the website or chat – we'll respond within an hour. Order turnkey development – we'll design infoblocks, integrate 1C, and speed up the catalog. If you already have a site on another CMS, order a performance audit and migration to Bitrix.