RIOS

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International multidisciplinary design collective working to amplify the impact of innovative design. For more information visit www.rios.com

RIOS is an international design collective working beyond boundaries to inventively combine disciplines and amplify the impact of design. Combined, our talents comprise a wide range of professional skills including architecture, landscape, urban planning, interior design, video, graphics and signage, and experiential and product design. Our work is irreversibly connected to the narrative of place and the complex order of human culture, creating solutions that are joyful, authentic, and unexpected. Our projects are diverse, including commercial, civic, hospitality, institutional, and residential.

10/08/2026

Icona: Labs at Mission Bay was designed to adapt as the needs of its tenants change. Since its completion, the campus has evolved with San Francisco’s changing technology and life sciences landscape. ⁠
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Swipe to see how Icona’s design supported a record-setting lease and sale.

10/05/2026

This World Architecture Day, the International Union of Architects asks the profession to consider a direct call to action: “Housing is a Human Right. Build It.”⁠
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Housing is fundamental to stability, community, and a sense of belonging. Meeting the need for housing takes many forms, from finding more efficient ways to deliver affordable homes to creating connected neighborhoods and supportive environments for people experiencing homelessness.⁠
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Across our work, we see architecture as one part of a larger effort to expand access to housing and create not simply places to live, but places that support dignity, connection, and opportunity.⁠
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At 1141 N. Vermont Ave, 290 affordable homes are taking shape near transit in East Hollywood. Designed for Thrive Living, the project uses modular construction to explore how housing can be delivered more efficiently. Prefabricated residential units are integrated with landscaped outdoor spaces, creating a replicable model for high-density urban housing.⁠

At 1141 N. Vermont Ave, 290 affordable homes are taking shape near transit in East Hollywood. Designed for Thrive Living, the project uses modular construction to explore how housing can be delivered more efficiently. Prefabricated residential units are integrated with landscaped outdoor spaces, creating a replicable model for high-density urban housing.⁠

At 1141 N. Vermont Ave, 290 affordable homes are taking shape near transit in East Hollywood. Designed for Thrive Living, the project uses modular construction to explore how housing can be delivered more efficiently. Prefabricated residential units are integrated with landscaped outdoor spaces, creating a replicable model for high-density urban housing.⁠

Designed pro bono, Harvest Home transforms a former convent into a welcoming place for expectant mothers experiencing homelessness and their children. Shared spaces open to the garden, with dedicated places for gathering, group therapy, and educational programs. The project reflects RIOS’ ongoing work with organizations supporting women and children, including Catholic Charities Diocese o

10/02/2026

What if the materials we build with could help regenerate the environments they come from?⁠
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As New York City came together for Climate Week, RIOS’ Climate Action Committee explored the potential of bio-based materials in design through a research initiative developed collaboratively between our London and LA offices.⁠

Derived wholly or partly from renewable biological resources, bio-based materials can support healthier spaces, store carbon, and contribute to more circular material systems. Incorporating them means looking beyond the label to consider sourcing, composition, performance, health impacts, and end of life. The goal is not simply to replace one material with another, but to rethink how design can work in reciprocity with ecological systems.⁠
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The research came to life through a hands-on exhibition, recently explored by faculty and students from Clemson and Michigan State’s landscape programs during an office visit.⁠
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This thinking also extends into our work. At 1 Hotel West Hollywood, RIOS worked with Angel City Lumber to create planters and custom reception desks from reclaimed local wood.

09/25/2026

The full moon is a symbol of reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival, bringing families and friends together. Look closely, and tradition says you might spot the Jade Rabbit in its shadows. What began as an observation of the moon’s markings became a story passed down through generations, a reflection of how we find meaning in the world around us.⁠
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From all of us at RIOS, wishing you a Mid-Autumn Festival filled with shared traditions and good company.

09/23/2026

The first look inside the new Music Hall at The 1901 Project reveals a purpose-built, music-first venue designed by RIOS taking shape on the United Center campus. Designed from the ground up around sound, sightlines, and the shared experience of live music, the venue is set to open in 2028.⁠

⁠The Music Hall steps back at its edges to meet the public realm at a pedestrian scale, with a sculpted theater volume and scalloped metal cladding inspired by Chicago’s industrial heritage. A monumental glass façade opens the building to the plaza, making the energy within visible from the surrounding public realm.⁠

⁠The 6,000-person venue is designed around the connection between artist and audience, with the experience extending beyond the stage into the surrounding open space, restaurants, and retail.

From the Music Hall terrace, views across the public plaza and United Center create a visual connection to the surrounding activity of The 1901 Project.⁠

The three-level performance room combines sweeping sightlines, dramatic lighting, and a scalable capacity, allowing the room to retain an intimate character across different configurations.

The three-level performance room combines sweeping sightlines, dramatic lighting, and a scalable capacity, allowing the room to retain an intimate character across different configurations.

09/15/2026

Spotify Sycamore Studios is an honoree in Fast Company’s 2026 Innovation by Design Awards.⁠
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RIOS designed the 10,000-square-foot Hollywood facility to support podcasting‘s evolution from audio to video-first content. Five dedicated studios support multi-camera setups, changing sets, and theatrical lighting within a compact footprint. The entire facility becomes a platform for content creation, with universal media infrastructure, flexible lighting, and camera-ready sightlines extending production into lounges, green rooms, corridors, and shared spaces. ⁠
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Inspired by Hollywood’s culture of performance and hospitality, the interiors create a cinematic journey for creators and talent. Home to the Ringer podcasts including The Rewatchables, The Ringer-Verse, and The Hottest Take, Sycamore Studios supports Spotify’s growing creator network and gives independent podcasters and emerging talent access to professional-grade production resources. ⁠
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Congratulations to the project team:⁠
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Client: Spotify / Interior Architecture & Interior Design: RIOS / Project Management: VVA / General Contractor: Taslimi Construction / Expeditor: DC Expediting / MEP: ARC Engineering / Acoustician/Studio Engineer: RWDI

09/09/2026

What if an entire campus could become a learning experience for children?⁠
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We design education environments where learning extends beyond the classroom. Planning, architecture, landscape, graphics, and signage work together to integrate nature, play, and movement into everyday learning. Indoor-outdoor environments invite children to explore, look closer, and ask questions.⁠

Children’s Center at Caltech⁠
The Children’s Center at Caltech makes the campus itself a teaching tool. An arroyo captures and filters rainwater, interactive water features encourage experimentation, and visible environmental systems introduce children to how their surroundings work.⁠

⁠Waikiki Private School Student Center⁠
This Student Center is the campus heart for learning, wellness, dining, and gathering. Inspired by Hawaii’s lush landscape, outdoor spaces connect students to nature and bring the school community together.⁠

⁠Waikiki Private School Student Center⁠
This Student Center is the campus heart for learning, wellness, dining, and gathering. Inspired by Hawaii’s lush landscape, outdoor spaces connect students to nature and bring the school community together.⁠

Lulu’s Place⁠
Education, athletics, and wellness come together at Lulu’s Place, a 34-acre campus for LA youth. Flexible classrooms and multipurpose spaces support different activities and ways of gathering, with spaces that extend outdoors.⁠

Lulu’s Place⁠
Education, athletics, and wellness come together at Lulu’s Place, a 34-acre campus for LA youth. Flexible classrooms and multipurpose spaces support different activities and ways of gathering, with spaces that extend outdoors.⁠

Westside Neighborhood School⁠
A 22,000-square-foot former warehouse gives Westside Neighborhood School room to grow with creative classrooms, maker spaces, a full-size gymnasium, and a new Early Childhood Center. Classrooms open directly onto a courtyard, expanding the learning environment for the school’s youngest students.

Westside Neighborhood School⁠
A 22,000-square-foot former warehouse gives Westside Neighborhood School room to grow with creative classrooms, maker spaces, a full-size gymnasium, and a

09/03/2026

A first look - inside the Hollywood Bowl⁠
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RIOS Senior Associate Jin Tack and Project Designer Irvin Shaifa share the thinking behind the Terri and Jerry Kohl Artist Pavilion at the Hollywood Bowl, where a form inspired by sound radiating from the iconic shell creates a flexible gathering space.⁠
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During the LA Phil season, the Artist Pavilion Grill brings a full-service restaurant and w**e bar to the space. During Live Nation’s concert season, the south side becomes a VIP lounge and the north hosts events. In the off-season, Los Angeles County programs the Pavilion as part of the Bowl’s year-round public park.⁠
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Continuing more than two decades of RIOS work across the Hollywood Bowl, RIOS designed the Pavilion’s architecture, landscape, lighting, and architectural finishes, with interiors and furnishings by Frederick Fisher and Partners. The project was made possible by lead donors Terri and Jerry Kohl, with major support from Andrew Hewitt and Bill Silva of Live Nation Hewitt Silva.

08/27/2026

This summer, RIOS welcomed emerging designers across architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, experience design, sustainability, and marketing to our Los Angeles, Austin, and London offices. ⁠

Our summer interns dove into life at RIOS, bringing fresh perspectives to project work and research, and getting involved in everything from site visits and photoshoots to vendor workshops, ping pong, and softball games.⁠

Interns across disciplines collaborated on a research project exploring a central question: How can the public library evolve as a civic space for learning, gathering, creating, and community? Their research led to two design schemes: A Living Studio and The Trail.⁠
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A Living Studio reimagines the library as a place for producing and exchanging knowledge, with flexible spaces for making, collaboration, exhibitions, and civic life.⁠

The Trail organizes the library as a continuous journey from active gathering spaces to quieter places for reading and reflection, connecting architecture and landscape from city to mountain.

04/24/2026

Good things grow when you share them. 🌿

Our offices celebrated Earth Day with a propagation happy hour — swapping cuttings, rooting plants, and sending everyone home with something new to grow.

Propagation is the practice of growing new plants from a cutting of an existing one, no seeds required. Understanding how plants grow and reproduce grounds us in the ecosystems we design for. It reminds us what landscape architecture is about: connecting people to nature, to each other, and to the plants that bring us together.

Address

3101 W Exposition Place
Los Angeles, CA
90018

Telephone

+13237851800

Website

http://www.rios.com/

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