Quarra Video Library — Navigation & Sitemap Changes

Overview

During the ^[1] January 2026 strategy call, the team aligned on adding a dedicated Videos page to the main site navigation to surface a growing library of high-quality, non-project-specific video content. To accommodate this without bloating the nav, the existing News and Blog links will move to the site footer.

This decision reflects a broader recognition that Quarra has been sitting on valuable video assets — covering topics like engineering marble, thermal hysteresis, and fine art packaging — that aren't being actively broadcast through the website.

Decision

Add a "Videos" page to the main navigation.

• Project-specific videos remain on their respective project pages
• Non-project-specific, broadly applicable videos (e.g., material science topics, process explainers) go on the new Videos library page
• News and Blog nav items move to the site footer, freeing up a main nav slot
• Videos are embedded via YouTube or Vimeo links — not uploaded directly to the CMS — to preserve site performance

"I think having a video tab and it's just a library of different videos, that could be an interesting addition to the site."
— Lincoln Durham

"We want to do links, embed links, instead of actually loading the videos onto the back end of the website, because that could just, if they're long videos..."
— Karly Oykhman

Rationale

• Quarra has accumulated video content across YouTube and Vimeo that is not surfaced on the website
• Non-project videos don't have a natural home on existing service or project pages
• News and Blog pages are typically landing destinations (via search/social), not primary navigation destinations — moving them to the footer has low user-experience cost
• Embedding via hosted links avoids page-load performance degradation from large video files

Sitemap Change Summary

Video Approval & Permissions Workflow

Before any video is published to the site, the following steps apply:

1. Lauren reviews the forwarded video links with Jim to confirm which are approved for public use
2. Videos hosted on third-party channels (e.g., Collier Memorial dedication video) may require explicit permission from the rights holder before embedding
3. Videos cleared for use in Google Ads or other paid channels require the raw asset file (not just an embed link) — Lauren to send those to Karly separately

Action Items

• [ ] Lauren: Review forwarded video links with Jim; send approved embed links to Karly (@Lauren)
• [ ] Lauren: Identify any videos requiring third-party permissions and initiate those requests (@Lauren)
• [ ] Lauren: Send raw video assets to Karly for any approved for Google Ads use (@Lauren)
• [ ] AAG/Karly: Implement Videos page in main nav; move News and Blog to footer once video list is confirmed (@Karly Oykhman)

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]