---
title: "Southward — Architecture & design studio template"
canonical: "https://elliotli.dev/templates/southward/"
pubDate: "2026-10-11T00:00:00.000Z"
author: Elliot Li
description: "Southward is an Astro + Sanity template for architecture and design studios — Visual Editing, a domain-driven CMS schema, cinematic scroll, and SEO built in."
tags: [studio, framer-template]
---

**$99 · Architecture & design studio template**
Southward is an Astro + Sanity template for architecture and design studios — Visual Editing, a domain-driven CMS schema, cinematic scroll, and SEO built in.
[Buy Southward — $99](https://contra.com/payment-link/Yupwl5dD-southward-architecture-and-design-studio-template-for-astro)

## What's included

- 7 page templates — Home, Work Index, Project Detail, About, Services, Contact, and a custom 404
- Sanity Visual Editing with draft-mode preview and stega encoding pre-wired
- Domain-driven CMS schema — Projects, Materials, Team Members, Awards, Publications, Site Settings
- Cinematic scroll choreography on GSAP and Lenis
- Automated JSON-LD, Open Graph tags, canonical URLs, and an auto-generated sitemap
- Production-ready inquiry form and integrated call-to-action blocks
- Deploys to Cloudflare Workers by default, adaptable to any Astro SSR backend

## Overview

Southward is a production-grade website template for architecture, interior design, and
creative studios — or any high-end portfolio built to showcase work, establish authority,
and turn visitors into clients. The engineering is wired end to end: Sanity Visual Editing
and draft-mode previews ship configured, deployed to Cloudflare Workers by default.

## Approach

- **True Visual Editing:** click any element in the live preview to edit it inside Sanity Studio, with stega encoding, draft-mode cookie handling, and a custom history adapter already set up.
- **Cinematic interaction:** full-page scroll choreography on GSAP and Lenis — animated project galleries, a feature reel, custom cursor, and smooth page transitions, kept dependency-light.
- **Domain-driven schema:** pre-built document types for Projects, Materials, Team Members, Awards, Publications, and Site Settings, with modular references and enforced alt text.
- **SEO built in:** automated JSON-LD, dynamic Open Graph tags, canonical URLs, an auto-generated sitemap, and images served through the Sanity CDN.

## Outcome

A live, CMS-backed site clients edit in real time — not a static mockup — covering Home,
Work Index, Project Detail, About, Services, Contact, and a custom 404. Built on Astro 7,
Sanity, Tailwind CSS v4, and TypeScript.

Questions? Write to contact@elliotli.dev — pre-purchase questions and template support.