CrowdBuilding v2
Growing a scrappy prototype into a platform for collective housing
I redesigned and rebuilt CrowdBuilding for its second version — taking a scrappy low-code prototype to a scalable platform with a Laravel backend, a Webflow frontend, and a new visual language that made collective housing feel friendly and approachable.
A couple of years after launching the first version of CrowdBuilding, Tjeerd called me out of the blue. He’d just secured the resources to take the platform from a scrappy prototype to something truly scalable — and asked if I could design the next version alongside a new, growing team. I had lovingly cobbled together the original version using Webflow for the frontend, Alphi to sync with Airtable, and Memberstack for authentication. It was a wonderfully lean setup — the perfect experiment to see whether people actually wanted to co-create housing projects online.
And it worked. The platform grew fast. Dozens of projects were published, hundreds of people signed up, and a real community began to form. But the stack started to show its limits. Airtable slowed down, syncs bottlenecked, and maintaining data integrity across tools became a chore. The low-code magic that once made iteration so easy was now holding everything back.
There’s always that moment in a digital product’s life when “getting something live” gives way to “building something that lasts.” For CrowdBuilding, that moment had arrived.
Rebuilding the foundations
The good news was that not everything needed to be scrapped. The Webflow frontend was still strong, flexible and fast to iterate. Memberstack handled user authentication perfectly fine and was easily capible to handle more than a million users. The real issue was behind the scenes: data.
We needed a proper backend. Something structured, secure, and scalable enough to handle hundreds (soon thousands) of users, multiple municipalities, and a growing catalogue of housing projects — all while keeping the frontend lightweight and fast.
I collaborated closely with the development team to design how data should move between systems. A new backend was developed in Laravel, with a clean data model and a set of APIs that gave us precise control over what the frontend could access.
Once these endpoints were ready, I integrated them directly into Webflow using custom scripts and API bindings. That meant we could keep the speed and visual freedom of Webflow — perfect for testing new layouts and campaigns — but with the reliability and performance of a custom-built backend. I could hardly believe it when I liked a project and… it worked instantly?! It was a genuinely hybrid solution: design-first, developer-friendly, and sustainable. I could rapidly design and build while the backend team supported any api call that needed to be made like magic.
The best part? Users didn’t see a “v2” — just a platform that suddenly felt faster, more stable, and more alive.
For the UI, I opted for a warm, editorial-inspired approach. Because collective living is still a relatively new and unfamiliar concept for many — particularly the older audience who make up a large part of the platform’s community — the design needed to feel friendly, human, and approachable. It avoids overly digital or techy aesthetics in favour of calm typography, generous spacing, and a tone that invites curiosity and trust.
Telling the story again
However, just as important as the technical upgrades was revisiting the story.
CrowdBuilding isn’t a marketplace — it’s a movement toward more collaborative, community-driven housing. But that idea can feel abstract. Our goal was to make participation feel tangible, simple, and meaningful — as though you’re part of something special. We reworked the landing page, onboarding, and campaign materials to strengthen the narrative.
Clearer hierarchy, simplified messaging, and bolder calls-to-action guided users through what had previously been a maze of jargon and architecture language.
The result was a step-by-step journey through the core stages of participation:
- Discovering what CrowdBuilding is
- Finding a project
- Joining a group
- Shaping a home
We balanced architectural storytelling with digital clarity. Visuals became more human, copy more conversational, and the interface began to breathe. For the UI, I opted for a warm, editorial-inspired approach. Collective living is still a relatively new concept — especially for the older audience that makes up a large part of the community — so the design needed to feel friendly, human, and approachable.
I avoided overly digital or techy aesthetics in favour of calm typography, generous spacing, and a tone that invited curiosity and trust. The palette softened, and imagery shifted from architectural renderings to stories about people — shared meals, workshops, construction updates.
It wasn’t just about buildings anymore; it was about building together.
I updated the logo slightly, tweaking the angles and spacing between the shapes to work better at different sizes.
Discovering a new audience
Midway through the redesign, an interesting pattern appeared in the analytics and feedback: municipalities were showing up — not as users, but as potential partners.
City representatives wanted to list available plots, highlight community projects, and even host dedicated pages on the platform. I developed a new system of municipality pages, giving them a space to tell their stories while integrating seamlessly with the existing structure. These acted as hubs for the muncipalities, showing everything that was happening there around collective living. These pages quickly became an important part of the business model — providing both revenue and credibility, while strengthening the link between citizens and local government in shaping future housing projects. What began as a digital experiment in community housing evolved into a bridge between policy and people.
