Meridian Atelier

Design-led practices, architects, ateliers, studios, live or die on how their work feels, not just how it reads. A wall of thumbnails undersells a body of work that's meant to be moved through. The concept: make the portfolio itself the experience, a real-time 3D space the visitor navigates, so the medium matches the craft. We built it for a real client engagement, then rebuilt an anonymized version, Meridian Atelier, as a demo we can share openly.

1. 01

   Real-time 3D in a browser is easy to make heavy. It had to feel cinematic without a multi-megabyte payload or a janky first paint, on phones included.

2. 02

   A 3D space disorients fast. The scroll had to drive the camera with intent so the visitor always knows where they are and where they're going.

3. 03

   It still had to work as a portfolio: the work, the practice, the way to get in touch, all legible, not lost inside the spectacle.

4. 04

   Anonymizing it for public sharing without gutting what made it feel special.

Built on React Three Fiber, the portfolio is a navigable 3D scene instead of a page of images: scroll drives a staged camera move through the work. Lighting uses Lightformers rather than a heavy HDRI, so the scene stays light and loads fast. An editorial brand layer, type, pacing, restraint, keeps it reading as a serious practice, not a tech demo. The Meridian Atelier build is a fictional-brand clone of the real engagement, so the experience can be shared publicly without exposing the client.

Live as a shareable demo at meridian-atelier.vercel.app. It's the piece we point to when a design-led client asks what an experiential site could feel like: proof we can put real-time 3D in a browser without wrecking performance, and frame it as a serious brand rather than a gimmick.