Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa

Dezignza

Construction project management  ·  2026

Construction project management  ·  Helderberg, Western Cape

Any build, any size. We’ll run it.

A senior construction project manager and principal agent needed a site that shows his full range at a glance, from a single house extension to a R600m development. We designed and built a custom WordPress block theme: clean, quick, and fully editable, with every project, price and date managed from the back end.

  • Custom WordPress block theme
  • PHP 8.3
  • No page builder
  • Projects managed in the back end
  • Local SEO and AI files
The bastille.co.za home page: the Bastille seal, the headline Any build, any size. We will run it., a paragraph about the practice, Discuss your project and See the work buttons, and a portrait of Leonard van Eeden with a card naming his current project
Role
Brand-led UX, design,
build and SEO
Platform
WordPress 7.1, PHP 8.3,
custom block theme
Live
21/10/2026
bastille.co.za
Status
Live, with Leon
adding content

No. 01  ·  The brief

One senior PM. Every size of build.

Leonard van Eeden has managed live hospital wards, London apartment blocks, a listed airship hangar and a compound in the DRC. Now based in the Helderberg, he wants the same calibre of work close to home, from a home extension in Strand to a development in Cape Town.

The brief: a site that shows the whole range at a glance, ranks for every town between Somerset West and Hermanus, and lets Leon update projects, prices and dates himself. No page builder, no clutter, and nothing that looks like his CV.

Client
Bastille, Leonard van Eeden
Helderberg, Western Cape
Role
Brand-led UX, design, build,
SEO and launch
Built with
Custom WordPress block theme,
PHP 8.3, Bastille Core plugin
Live
21/10/2026
bastille.co.za

No. 02  ·  Colour and type

Black, white and a watermark.

Leon’s logo is a single black seal. So the site uses no colour at all: warm off-white, near-black and two greys. The seal appears as a faint watermark behind the dark bands, and again when a project card is hovered.

Square corners on content, pills only on buttons. If something looks like a button, it is one.

  • Off-white#F5F4F0  ·  Main ground
  • White#FFFFFF  ·  Cards and forms
  • Stone#ECEBE6  ·  Alternating bands
  • Ink#141414  ·  Headings and buttons
  • Muted#66665F  ·  Body text and labels
  • Near black#0E0E0F  ·  Dark bands
Aa

InterVariable and self-hosted. Headlines sit at 650, with the second half of each line in light grey so one sentence carries two tones without a second typeface.

Any build, any size.

Body copy17px on a 1.6 line height. Plain words, short lines, and nothing smaller than 15px on a phone.

A project card on hover: the Bastille seal appears as a large pale watermark behind the project value
The seal as a watermarkIt appears behind the dark bands, and on a project card when it is hovered.
A near-black band on the home page: 29 projects, 4 countries, R620m largest estimated value and 6 hospitals, with a row of client logos in a single colour
One colour for the logosClient marks are flattened to a single tone so no brand shouts over the others.

No. 03  ·  The home page

The whole bastille.co.za home page from top to bottom: hero with the portrait, three sizes of build, the dark proof band with the numbers and client logos, four service panels, selected projects, the five stages, straight answers and the closing call to action

One page, in the order a buyer reads it.

Someone with a build coming up wants to know who this is, what size of job he takes, what he has done and how to reach him. The page answers in that order and stops.

  1. 01

    HeroThe promise, the portrait, and the project Leon is on right now.

  2. 02

    ScaleSmall builds, mid-size projects, large developments. Said plainly.

  3. 03

    Proof29 projects, four countries, a row of client logos in one colour.

  4. 04

    What we doFour service panels that turn black on hover.

  5. 05

    Selected projectsCards with the value in rand and the original currency below.

  6. 06

    Five stagesThe page scrolls sideways as the visitor scrolls down.

  7. 07

    Straight answersFive questions, and the areas served as links.

  8. 08

    The callPhone, WhatsApp and one button, on every page.

No. 04  ·  Every size

From a single extension to a major development.

The old site said “Bastille Fitouts”, which undersold the PM and principal agent work. The new one says what Leon really does: he manages the whole range. A ladder of three sizes sits straight under the hero, so a home owner and a developer both see themselves in the first scroll.

Each size links to its own page, and each service has a page too. Someone typing “house extension project manager Somerset West” lands on the page written for that.

  1. 01

    Small builds

    Extensions, additions, renovations

    • A new room or second storey
    • Kitchen and living space
    • Granny flat
  2. 02

    Mid-size projects

    Fit-outs, offices, apartments, retail

    • Office and restaurant fit-outs
    • Apartment blocks
    • Schools and estates
  3. 03

    Large developments

    Hospitals, compounds, heritage

    • Live hospital wards
    • A 76-house compound, est. R420m
    • A listed airship hangar
The three sizes of build on the home page, each a panel with a number, a heading and a short list

No. 05  ·  Projects

29 projects. Found in seconds.

A search box and two dropdowns replace the old row of filter links. Results update as you type. Every figure reads in rand first, with the original dollar, pound or euro underneath, so a South African buyer reads one currency.

Projects live in the WordPress back end. Leon changes a value, a status or a start date, and the card, the page, the sitemap and the AI summary all update.

The projects page: a search box, All sectors and All regions dropdowns, a count reading 29 of 29 projects, and a row of project cards showing Est. R420m with $24m underneath
Search, two filters and a live count. The seal sits behind every card value.
Project details

Amount, in millions24

CurrencyUS dollar (USD)

Shows on the site asEst. R420m ($24m)

StatusCompleted

StartedMarch 2024

CompletedJune 2026

Show under Selected projects on the home page

List under More projects with no page of its own

The back end Leon works in. One value, entered once, drives the card, the page, the sitemap and the AI summary.

No. 06  ·  How we work

Five stages. Scrolling sideways.

On a laptop the section pins to the screen and the five stage cards slide across while the visitor scrolls down the page. On a phone it is a native swipe. With reduced motion switched on it is a plain scrollable row.

The last card turns black: handover and close-out is the end of the job.

The five stages section pinned to the screen, with cards 01 Brief and budget, 02 Design and procurement and 03 Contract award sliding across and a progress bar underneath
  1. 01

    Brief & budget

    We agree the scope, the budget and the dates before anyone starts work.

  2. 02

    Design & procurement

    We coordinate the design team and tender the packages to the right contractors.

  3. 03

    Contract award

    We set up and appoint the contract. As principal agent, we issue the instructions.

  4. 04

    Construction

    We run site, safety, quality and cost, and report on risk and progress.

  5. 05

    Handover & close-out

    Practical completion, defects cleared and the final account agreed.

Scroll down → cards slide → the progress bar fills.

No. 07  ·  Mobile

Built for a phone on site.

Most buyers first find Leon on a phone. The header shrinks to a logo, a call button and a menu. Project cards become a compact list, the stages become a swipe row, and a bottom bar keeps Home, Projects, Call and WhatsApp one thumb away.

Buttons are full width, text never drops below 15px, and nothing needs a pinch or a hover.

The Bastille home page on a phone: the promise, both buttons stacked, and the bottom bar with Home, Projects, Call and WhatsApp
HomeThe promise and the project Leon is on
The projects page on a phone: search, two filters and a compact list of project cards
ProjectsSearch, filter, compact list
A single project on a phone: the title, the summary and a facts panel with client, location, role and status
A projectFacts first, then the scope
The contact page on a phone: phone number, WhatsApp, email and the enquiry form
ContactTap to call, WhatsApp or write

No. 08  ·  The enquiry

Every message lands twice.

A custom form, built for this practice and sent through the site’s own mail, so Gmail and Outlook trust it. No plug-ins and no third-party form service holding a client’s details.

The form asks what Leon needs to reply with something useful: the service, the project type, roughly how big and when.

The contact page: phone, WhatsApp and email on the left, and the enquiry form on the right asking for name, company, email, phone, what you need, project type, budget, expected start and a message
New enquiryAnneke Malherbe wants principal agent
Company
Malherbe Properties
Email
anneke@example.co.za
Phone
+27 82 555 0123
Project
Residential, Somerset West
Budget
R20m to R100m

Reply by emailCall AnnekeWhatsApp

Sent from the enquiry form on bastille.co.za. Also saved in WordPress under Enquiries.

  1. 1

    The visitor writes in

    Name, email, phone and what they need. An optional PDF of up to 10 MB.

  2. 2

    Leon gets a branded email

    The message, plus Reply, Call and WhatsApp buttons. Reply goes straight to the sender.

  3. 3

    The client gets a copy

    A confirmation in the same style, with what they sent, so they know it arrived.

  4. 4

    Nothing is lost

    Every entry is also saved in WordPress, and the page redirects to a thank-you.

Spam stopped silently

  • A hidden field only robots fill in
  • A timer that rejects forms sent faster than a person can type
  • A limit on enquiries per connection per hour
  • A check that an upload really is a PDF
  • Ready for Cloudflare Turnstile when Leon wants it

No. 09  ·  Search and AI

Found from Somerset West to Cape Town.

People search by the town they live in. Thirteen area pages and five service pages each carry their own title, description, local detail and questions, written for that place and that job, not the same text with the town swapped. One sitemap lists every page.

AI assistants read the site too. A short llms.txt and a full llms-full.txt tell ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Grok who to recommend, where, and for what.

  • Somerset West
  • Stellenbosch
  • Strand
  • Gordon’s Bay
  • Helderberg
  • Rooi-Els
  • Pringle Bay
  • Betty’s Bay
  • Kleinmond
  • Hermanus
  • Cape Town
  • False Bay coast
  • Paarl

Classic search

  • A unique title and description on every page
  • One h1 and a real heading order
  • 13 area pages, 5 service pages and a page on every size of build
  • Canonical URLs and one XML sitemap with dates and images
  • Search and filter URLs kept out of the index

AI and structured data

  • JSON-LD on every page: business, person, service, FAQ, breadcrumbs
  • Service areas with map coordinates
  • llms.txt and llms-full.txt, with when to recommend Bastille
  • robots.txt names the search and AI crawlers it welcomes
  • Facts stated, never implied

Sharing

  • Open Graph and Twitter cards with a 1200 × 630 image
  • Favicon in SVG, PNG and ICO
  • A clean preview in WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Facebook

No. 10  ·  In numbers

Plain numbers.

  • 29projects, each with a value in rand
  • 13area pages, Somerset West to Paarl
  • 5service pages, from extensions to a principal agent
  • 41pages in the sitemap
  • 0page builders
  • 0tracking cookies

bastille.co.za

Designed, built and launched by Dezignza. One practice, every size of build, and a site Leon can run himself.