PRJ/
Madinah City Platform
From a holy city’s need to showcase its cultural and urban richness in a modern digital format, to a complete City Experience platform that brings together places, events and services in a bilingual, fast and SEO-optimized experience.
The Challenge
The city of Madinah needed a modern, scalable digital platform capable of bringing together urban experiences, points of interest, events and services for residents and visitors. The solution had to be delivered as a multilingual (Arabic/English) headless API consumed by a Next.js frontend, for a fast, SEO-optimized experience. The main challenge: a fully decoupled architecture with native RTL support and the management of 13 distinct place types, each with geolocation, media and rich content.
The Solution
We created a fully decoupled architecture with TYPO3 v13.4 as a headless CMS delivering structured JSON data, consumed by a Next.js frontend with SSR/SSG rendering. We developed custom extensions for managing places (reea_places — 13 domain models), events (reea_events) and dedicated REST API endpoints. All content is managed bilingually (Arabic RTL / English LTR) through TYPO3’s localization system.
Key Functionalities
- 21 custom content elements built with Mask, fully configured for headless JSON output (hero banners, sliders, navigation cards, timeline, KPI statistics etc.).
- 13 place types with dedicated domain models, each with geolocation, media and rich content (restaurants, mosques, museums, green spaces, boulevards, traditional markets, etc.).
- Custom REST API endpoints (middleware) for listing and filtering: /restaurants/api, /coffeeshops/api, /greenspaces/api, /boulevards/api.
- Full multilingual support: bilingual content management, RTL-aware delivery in JSON, separate language versions for all content types.
- Enterprise search via Apache Solr, headless-integrated.
- Cloud media storage on Amazon S3 via dedicated FAL driver.
- Secure API authentication through custom middleware
The Result
The Madinah City Platform has transformed the way the city presents its urban and cultural offering. The headless architecture ensures a fast, SEO-optimized experience, while full bilingual support (Arabic RTL + English LTR) serves both residents and international visitors. With 21 custom content elements, 13 place types with dedicated APIs and enterprise search via Solr, the platform provides a solid and scalable foundation for the city’s digital development.
Our collaboration
The partnership started from the need to create an enterprise-level digital platform for a city of outstanding cultural and religious significance. Through our expertise in TYPO3, headless architectures and Next.js frontend development, we delivered a solution that combines backend robustness with a modern, fluid user experience. Today, the Madinah City Platform is the central tool for the city’s digital promotion.
Technologies Used
Backend:
- TYPO3 v13.4
- PHP 8.x
- MySQL 8
- Apache Solr
- Amazon S3
- Headless (FriendsOfTYPO3)
- Mask (content builder)
Frontend:
- Next.js (React)
- SSR / SSG rendering
- RTL / LTR multilingual support
- CloudFlare
