Website redesign for an architecture firm in Taipei: budget, timeline and risks (2026)

The verdict in three sentences

A website redesign for a Taipei practice costs USD 2,900 to 8,900 on the Kolonell fixed grid, against a 2026 ballpark of TWD 250,000 to 800,000 (about USD 7,800 to 25,000) at a full-service local agency. Once texts and photos are ready, delivery takes 3 to 4 weeks, but the portfolio audit has to start before anyone opens a design file. The risk that costs the most is losing project pages that already bring enquiries, and a URL inventory with a 301 redirect map is what prevents it.

Which signals say your Taipei firm needs a redesign?

After years of added projects, these signals mean patching has stopped paying off:

• Project pages take more than 4 seconds to load on a phone because photos were uploaded at 8 to 15 MB each.
• The portfolio mixes completed buildings, competition entries and early concepts with no filter or label.
• The English pages are a machine translation of the Traditional Chinese ones, or stop halfway through the menu.
• Updating a project means calling the freelancer who built the theme.
• The contact form invites visitors to attach plans, so client drawings land in an ordinary inbox.

When three or more apply, a structured redesign usually costs less over three years than another round of fixes.

What does a redesign cost in Taipei in 2026?

Local figures: a 2026 ballpark from typical Taipei agency quotes, converted at roughly TWD 32 per USD.

Every Kolonell tier includes a project manager reachable in the Taipei time zone, native English copywriting, delivery in 3 to 4 weeks and 3 months of support. Traditional Chinese copy is written by the firm or by a third-party native translator, a cost paid outside the Kolonell fee. Japanese, if needed, is set in the Premium quote.

What stays on quote, linked or embedded rather than rebuilt inside a fixed-grid site: BIM viewers, project extranets, client portals, tender document rooms, CRM integration, and the secure channel for receiving plans and documents. Compare tiers on the international offer page.

How do you migrate the portfolio without losing traffic?

A project page that has ranked for years for a district name is an asset; deleting it can cut enquiries for months. Sort every page before any design work:

The method takes about a week for 40 to 60 project pages. Export URLs (crawl and Search Console) with 12 months of visits, mark the decision, write the redirect map, test it on staging, then check Search Console for 6 weeks for 404 errors, indexing drops and queries that vanish.

On rights, check that each photographer contract covers the website and add a credit line on every project page. Images are compressed to WebP or AVIF with responsive sizes and lazy loading, which can bring a 12 MB gallery under 2 MB.

What timeline and other risks should you plan for?

The 3 to 4 weeks start once texts and photos are ready. Beyond the portfolio, four risks recur:

• Downtime: DNS switch at a quiet hour, backup of the old site kept 30 days.
• Integrations: links to the extranet, file sharing or LINE official account are listed and tested before the switch.
• Compliance: Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act covers contact and recruitment forms, so the form asks only for name, contact, project type, district and rough budget, and plans travel through a separate secure channel on quote. The title architect is reserved for people licensed under the Architects Act; seismic design and city permits are described generally, never as advice. This is not legal advice.
• Recruitment: a careers page for architects and technologists needs its own retention rule for CVs.

When is a local Taipei agency the better choice?

A local agency is the better option if you want workshops in Mandarin at your office, photographer and agency under one contract, or a client portal built from scratch, outside any fixed grid. Questions to ask whoever you choose: who writes the redirect map, who owns the domain and hosting accounts, how image rights are recorded, what happens after the support period, and which items are excluded from the price.

Mini case study

Illustrative example. Hsieh Liao Studio, a fictional residential practice in Taipei led by two partners who hold architect licences, employs about eight people. Its site holds 46 project pages.

Audit result: 22 pages kept, 8 merged into 4, 16 retired, so 26 project pages remain and 24 old URLs receive a 301. Budget: Kolonell Premium at USD 8,900 (the multilingual tier, Traditional Chinese and English set in the quote), a third-party native translator for the Chinese copy at about TWD 40,000 (around USD 1,250) and a local photographer for three unphotographed homes at about TWD 60,000 (around USD 1,900). Total: 8,900 + 1,250 + 1,900 = USD 12,050, against a mid-range local quote of TWD 450,000 (around USD 14,000) for a similar scope. Maintenance after the 3 included months is on quote.

FAQ

How long does a redesign take for a Taipei architecture firm?

Plan 3 to 4 weeks once texts and photos are ready, plus one week of audit for 40 to 60 project pages, then 6 weeks of monitoring.

Will we lose our Google rankings?

They can fluctuate for a few weeks. With a 301 for every URL that had visits in the last 12 months and 6 weeks of checks, the pages that brought enquiries keep their history.

Can the new site host our BIM models or client extranet?

Those tools stay on quote and are linked or embedded, never rebuilt inside a USD 4,900 or USD 8,900 site.

Which tier fits Traditional Chinese and English?

Premium at USD 8,900, the multilingual tier, with the languages set in the quote. Growth at USD 4,900 suits a single-language site with a larger portfolio.

Let's scope your project. Project page count, languages and go-live date: we return a fixed price from USD 2,900. See the international offer or request a free quote: detailed reply within 48 hours.