Archoverflow is Back Online
Well, we are back. After almost 6 months of being down, Archoverflow is here. Things will keep moving around over the next couple weeks, and we don’t expect to be fully flushed out with how things will function properly for quite a bit.
So, what happened…?
We self hosted AOF using wordpress on Google Cloud. While this was the most economical option, it ended up with us continually needing to figure out PhP updates, and other random server things that got progressively more confusing over the last 5 years. Without proper oversight, the site ultimately went down as well behind on updates and couldn’t figure out the issue. To make matters worse, our template we purchased and were using basically hadn’t been updated and was completely lacking support. I’m sure it was something someone with the right experience could have fixed in a couple hours, but without making money, there is no budget for that.
Backups?
There were several backups we had, but everything required spending more money to figure out if we could actually restore these. Before we spent more money, we decided at this moment that we needed a longer term solution, how to make sure things work for months from now regardless of whatever updates needed to occur.
We wanted to run a resource site for Architects, not spend months in an IT bootcamp. At this moment —we stupidly— turned to squarespace. Using it for other sites, the one benefit is that it basically runs itself. They spin up more servers when needed, and the site and backend is just ‘handled’ for you.
Squarespace?
The crazy part is we’ve had sites on SS before and ultimately went off them based on price and limitations of the product. But, we decided to give it another try. After spending all of July, August and even a bit of September, we had every single post re-written and uploaded to SS. There was no easy way to transfer, we painstakingly moved each article over individually.
During this time, we were working out ways to try and build a membership site using the SS resources and setup, and ultimately hit roadblocks with every decision and compromising everything to make it work. Everything required an add-on, or just wasn’t possible. Simple things like a good search feature were missing from Squarespace – we had made a mistake.
WordPress.com
I don’t know why it took so long for us to remember, but there is a big difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. One is self hosted, the other hosts for you. So if we switched to the ‘hosted for you’ wordpress.com, we could gain the benefits of not having to manage things like the backend, while also still keeping the benefits of wordpress. Ultimately, we decided to abandon Squarespace (money down the drain; not to mention hundreds of hours… but what can you do— live and learn).
Membership…?
Yes, we are going with a membership. A big change from before, but in spending hours working on this (not to mention the years we’ve put into this site already)… we’ve realized in this whole situation that it just isn’t feasible in the long term to run this site at a deficit month over month. Especially since our prices have risen over 10x since we first launched due to the site growing, and inflation.
Therefore, the information is valuable (at least we think so)… and if this site has a future, we need to make it a more viable economic proposition, at the least attempting to cover the hosting costs. In a perfect world, if we are able to make a little bit of money, we plan to plow most of that back into the site, potentially looking to pay other content creators, or build out resources in another way.
Graphics Benefit
One of the benefits of a membership site is of course the user experience increases. We were playing around with ads, but it just simply ruined the site. And besides, we’ve all been to those awful revit and architecture help sites that have essentially 90% of the screen covered — we didn’t want that.
Also, our information we noticed (we can’t prove this— but we suspect) was getting ported to other sites. So in order to squash any of that, plus also allow our imagery to be without watermarks, the membership approach solves this.
Towards the Future…
We’ve got big plans for Archoverflow. In the current version, it will be what you’ve come to know. A great resource for information Architects and Designers routinely need, well organized, and easy to access. We currently have over 100 articles and are posting new ones weekly.
In the near future, we are looking at expanding the resources to cover all Architectural Registration Exam (ARE) information. We are planning on this being completed in the next 3 months.
Additionally, you will see sometime in 2026, some architectural details. We are still working out how to properly organize and post these, but the plan is to create essentially a ‘detail library’ where other Professionals help curate and These details will allow members discord commentary.
Community of Professionals
The goal, at a larger view, is that this site can become a community of designers and architects. A place that you can rely on when you are working alone, part of a small office, or just need some technical advice and support that you can trust.
If you have any suggestions, criticism, or just want to drop us a line, please as always, reach out via the contact page.
