founded in 2008
The practice is made up of a dedicated team of over 60 architects, designers, and researchers, driven by a pragmatic yet visionary design approach. HQ Architects blends technical expertise with conceptual clarity, engaging with projects that are both ambitious in scale and precise in detail.
We begin with research, listening to context and uncovering potential. Through criteria, we define a framework that balances vision and practicality. The concept gives form to ideas, and in detail design, we stay involved through construction to ensure the built work stays true to its intent.
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1) Research
Every project begins with an act of listening. We immerse ourselves in its physical, cultural, political, and programmatic context, gathering insights from clients, communities, municipalities, and consultants. This stage opens up the field, revealing not only opportunities but also tensions and blind spots, helping us understand what the project truly wants to become.
2) Criteria
Armed with this knowledge, we work intensively within the studio and in close dialogue with the client to set clear design criteria. These criteria form the backbone of a strong and focused concept, one capable of holding the project across all scales. Ideas are tested, refined, and filtered until a framework emerges that can withstand both creative ambition and practical demands.
3) Concept
Once the concept is in place, we translate vision into architecture through detailed design and planning. Every material, drawing, and decision is measured against the project’s intent to maintain clarity and precision. For us, detail is not embellishment but the structure of meaning itself, ensuring that construction is faithful to the spirit of the original idea.
4) Detail Design
The process does not end at the drawing board. We stay actively involved through construction, collaborating with contractors, consultants, and clients to ensure execution meets ambition. Building is seen not only as delivery, but as the moment when abstract vision becomes civic reality, transforming how people live, move, and experience space.
Kaleo was born from the desire to return — to the land, to meaning, to something deeper than speed and noise.
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founded in 2008
The practice is made up of a dedicated team of over 60 architects, designers, and researchers, driven by a pragmatic yet visionary design approach. HQ Architects blends technical expertise with conceptual clarity, engaging with projects that are both ambitious in scale and precise in detail.
The Urban Design Studio
HQU treats infrastructure as a design opportunity, conceiving transit hubs, bridges, and mobility networks as civic landmarks that shape urban life. Its strategies guide how cities grow and adapt, balancing ambition with pragmatism through masterplans and large-scale interventions. At its core, the studio prioritizes the public realm, designing streets, plazas, and civic spaces as arenas of social life, ensuring that functionality, resilience, and human experience coexist.
The Landscape Studio
HQL places ecology at the core of design, treating landscapes as living systems that integrate native planting, water cycles, and climate resilience. As cities grow denser, the studio creates plazas, parks, and streetscapes that return nature to daily life while serving as social infrastructure. Each project is grounded in cultural memory and local narratives, transforming open spaces into places of continuity between past, present, and future.
The Housing Studio
HQH explores housing as a catalyst for social and urban transformation. The studio approaches residential design not as isolated buildings but as living frameworks that foster community, identity, and adaptability over time. From dense urban blocks to new neighborhood typologies, HQH integrates architecture, landscape, and collective life into cohesive environments that evolve with their residents. Each project aspires to balance intimacy and scale, individuality and belonging — redefining what home means in the contemporary city.
The R&D Studio
HQ-X pushes the limits of architecture through material innovation, digital fabrication, and technological exploration, developing solutions that move seamlessly from research to construction. By prototyping systems, mockups, and workflows in real time, the studio reshapes how projects are delivered and sharpens HQ’s ability to work at scale. Looking ahead to cultural, climatic, and technological shifts, HQ-X anticipates tomorrow’s challenges and ensures architecture remains innovative, resilient, and future-ready.
