Okay as someone who was one of the folks who has joined your ventures. I will give some feedback & recommendations
You need to build a community. It is not like the movie “Feild of Dreams” where people will just come if you launch a site.
As you have mentioned you have an Undergrad in Architecture but not a full architect papers.
Create a flow chart to work out your plan. With your degree have you kept in contact with some of your former classmates? Maybe they might be interested in helping this venture. As an added plus they are also potential sources of content.
If you choose a decent plan with a free mail server you can setup a VPS for very small fee. Iirc with my current vps that could be under $20/month not counting domain name.
Take your time work on figuring out what theme may best suit your needs.
For a category start maybe start with a Blog style Category with a group access for starting topics. In the beginning for this category set it up so you are the one that creates topics until you have other ppl to create architectural blogs. (blog style theme component a good recommendation)
Take sometime and do some research as you did when taking the course. And even use papers maybe that you wrote in school.
With self hosting you can use the RSS feed plugin to pull content from YouTube sources and more.
Keep things simple and add as you go. Have a general category where ppl can create topics.
For business purposes maybe a category with sub categories for your business use. Private Topics plugin can be a good fit for clients to post in to get say quotes and other private queries). Having a category with a portfolio of job pics before & after with clients permission is also a good way to help drum up business by showcasing your work.
Biggest thing is having patience to get there
As @bloomexperiment has said those other topics do have a lot of good info. Imho I believe you’re more looking for help refining your plan/approach with advice if how to get to where you want to be.
It takes time to get ppl interested and having trust to join up. Mega platforms can be easy as they are the devil ppl know. Be it FB or Reddit or…
Some might be squamish with a new site.
- If I sign up how much junk/spam mail am I going to get?
- How is this sure going to use my info? Are they sharing my email with 3rdparties? Etc…