DESIGNING A FRONTEND ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN SYSTEM FOR A PROPTECH PLATFORM
Discover how DBB Software established a modern frontend architecture and comprehensive design system for Plaace, a Norwegian PropTech company, achieving 50% bundle size reduction while delivering advanced geospatial visualization, interactive dashboards, and performance optimization for commercial real estate decision-makers.
Industry
Real Estate & Property Management
Service
UI/UX Design
Team
1 Frontend Developer, 1 Backend Developer
Project State
July 2020 - Ongoing
Country
Norway
About the Client
Plaace is a Norwegian PropTech company that operates an advanced real estate platform leveraging data analytics to help users identify the best locations and make informed property decisions. The platform serves property managers, landlords, and tenants with comprehensive features including card transactions, visitor tracking, demographic insights, and geospatial analysis. Plaace combines property management tools with powerful location intelligence to transform how real estate stakeholders interact with property data.
THE CLIENT'S INITIAL REQUEST
Plaace engaged DBB Software to establish a scalable frontend architecture and comprehensive design system that could support rapid feature development while maintaining performance and visual consistency as the platform evolved. The client needed expert frontend engineering to build a modern, maintainable codebase capable of handling complex data visualizations and geospatial interactions. Key requirements included:
Modular Frontend Architecture
Establish a monorepo structure with shared packages, optimized build tooling, and a maintainable codebase supporting long-term product evolution and team scalability.
01
Unified Design System
Create a comprehensive design system with reusable UI components ensuring visual consistency, accessible interfaces, and faster development velocity across the platform.
02
Advanced Geospatial UI Components
Build sophisticated frontend visualization components for interactive maps, including heatmaps, marker clustering, geofence drawing, and travel-time analysis with smooth 60fps performance.
03
Interactive Dashboard Editor
Develop a Notion-like WYSIWYG dashboard builder with drag-and-drop functionality, rich text editing, and seamless integration of charts and data visualizations.
04
Performance Optimization
Optimize bundle sizes, implement code splitting, lazy loading strategies, and ensure fast load times while handling complex data visualizations and interactive maps.
05
SOLUTIONS WE DELIVERED
DBB Software delivered comprehensive frontend architecture and design system implementation, focusing on performance optimization, modular codebase design, and sophisticated UI components. The solution established a scalable foundation supporting long-term platform evolution while delivering advanced geospatial visualization and interactive data experiences:
Modular Frontend Architecture with Design System
Built the platform using Next.js and TypeScript with a monorepo structure powered by Turborepo, streamlining local development and deployment workflows. Developed a standalone design system using PandaCSS, Shadcn, and Radix UI, providing reusable components that ensured visual consistency and accelerated feature development across the platform. Established component documentation and usage guidelines enabling rapid onboarding and maintainable code patterns.
Performance Optimization and Build Tooling
Migrated UI packages from Webpack to Rollup, achieving 50% bundle size reduction through efficient tree-shaking and optimized bundling. Implemented code splitting strategies, lazy loading for route-based components, and optimized React rendering patterns. Established Turborepo for fast monorepo builds with intelligent caching, reducing CI/CD pipeline times and enabling rapid iteration during development. Applied performance monitoring and optimization techniques ensuring smooth 60fps interactions across data-heavy visualizations.
Advanced Geospatial Visualization Components
Implemented comprehensive map-based UI components using Google Maps API and Mapbox GL, including heatmaps with demographic overlays, marker clustering for thousands of data points, and interactive geofence drawing with area validation and GeoJSON export. Developed travel-time catchment area visualization using Mapbox Isochrone API, supporting walking, driving, and cycling modes with adjustable time intervals (1-60 minutes), animated markers, and real-time visual feedback with optimized performance through debounced requests.
Interactive Dashboard Builder with WYSIWYG Editor
Architected a sophisticated dashboard UI supporting 20+ widget types (demographics, visitor flows, spend analysis, competition benchmarking) with multiple display modes and data layers. Built a Notion-like WYSIWYG editor using TipTap and Novel, featuring rich text formatting, images, tables, AI-powered text suggestions, and drag-and-drop widget arrangement with automatic responsive layout generation. Implemented undo/redo with history tracking, keyboard shortcuts, role-based permissions with edit locks, and configuration export/import with version control using React Hook Form with live validation.
Frontend Data Visualization and Export
Developed a reusable, extensible chart system using Recharts with custom components for tooltips, trendlines, animations, and complex chart types (pie, bar, line, mixed) tailored to platform needs. Built frontend export functionality mapping chart data to CSV/Excel formats with role-based access control. Implemented PDF export using native JavaScript Web APIs with dynamic layout adjustments, high-resolution image support, automatic metadata insertion, and print-specific CSS styling for pixel-perfect rendering.
RESULTS ACHIEVED
50% Bundle Size Reduction
Achieved 50% reduction in bundle size by migrating UI packages from Webpack to Rollup, significantly improving build times and platform performance through efficient tree-shaking and optimized bundling.
Production-Ready Design System
Established a comprehensive design system with PandaCSS, Shadcn, and Radix UI, providing reusable components with documentation that accelerated feature development and ensured consistent user experience across the platform.
High-Performance Map Rendering
Delivered advanced geospatial UI components with smooth 60fps interactions supporting heatmaps, marker clustering for thousands of data points, travel-time analysis, and interactive geofence drawing without performance degradation.
Sophisticated Dashboard Builder
Created a Notion-like dashboard UI with WYSIWYG editing, drag-and-drop layouts supporting 20+ widget types, undo/redo functionality, version control, and responsive design enabling complex data visualization for commercial real estate analysis.
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