Our studio is reflecting on the most momentous achievements of 2019. We enter the new year with a curious spirit, celebrating the successes we have achieved with our clients and looking ahead to new ones.
Above and Beyond
This year, we transcended design boundaries with new products, research, and technologies that enrich experiences.
We branded and curated a collection of indoor-outdoor tiles in collaboration with Fred + Cathy, our award-winning Rio Outdoor Furniture collection with Janus et cie expanded with six new pieces, and we introduced a custom bar swivel chair, The Welton Stool, providing elegant seating at The Music Center Plaza.
Our curiosity has taken us to new places. We went on a virtual reality kayak ride along Lady Bird Lake as part of Drake Bridge Commons and created a pollinator garden supported by bee hotels. Our interactive design processes and research created playful prototypes within the City’s urban fabric and we started a YouTube channel to showcase our explorations, FABRiC.
As explorers of the design spectrum, we can’t wait to see where the new year and beyond will take us in our unified vision, yet diverse passions.
Design Excellence
2019 was a year for project completion and recognition.
RIOS was listed #2 as one of Interior Design Magazine’s PowerGrid LA Top Firms. We concluded projects such as 1 Hotel West Hollywood, recognized as #4 on Condé Nast’s 2019 list of Best Hotels in the World, and projects in Austin, TX, where our creative workplace design for VRBO fuses data and travel – winning an Honorable Mention Best of Design Award from Architect Newspaper. Our Austin office design for 901 East Sixth Street also caught the attention of Architect’s Newspaper in this year’s awards. The Music Center Plaza Renovation opened to overwhelming community excitement and FLIGHT at Tustin Legacy redefined creative workplace for Orange County — both were recognized by the Southern California Development Forum Design Awards.
The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC, which will be completed early 2020, won an award from Westside Urban Forum. In addition, our research and proposal of a functional landscape machine to handle debris flow from mudslides in California, SLIDE, was acknowledged by Architect Magazine’s R+D Awards.
Where We've Been
Our studios’ leadership at industry events across the nation has connected us to design professionals and leaders through intellectual conversations on a wide range of topics – from resiliency, to experiential design methods, to the future of urban planning.
Andy Lantz presented his talk “No Right To Make This” at LA Design Festival and Austin Design Week. His discussion on the sensory experience engaged participants at SXSW, where we also hosted a talk on post-physical architecture on the VR stage. Sebastian Salvadó spoke on the adaptive reuse of ROW DTLA at Facades+ and represented RIOS at Interior Design’s Giants of Hospitality event and Future of Hospitality roundtable. Bob Hale shared his brilliance on sustainability and urban design at Record on the Road, Hospitality Design Expo, and spoke on our firm’s expertise across categories at New Orleans’ Architecture & Design Film Festival.
We invited the public to participate and provide feedback on our work in Austin and Santa Monica, and hosted a panel discussion on the magic of working in Los Angeles. Our community involvement has provided us with memorable experiences shared with our neighbors, clients, and friends.
Check out all of our 2019 events.
Sparking Curiosity for 2020
As we enter 2020, our curiosity drives us to discover fresh perspectives and revisit familiar ones as well, such as those at the AIA Conference on Architecture, hosted in LA this year. We will be hosting The American Planning Association & Westside Urban Forum Regional Housing Needs Assessment, where Mark Motonaga will act as a panelist.
We look forward to completing many anticipated projects and to starting many new ones as well. In 2020, we will see the completion of The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute, Palm Springs Park, and development of the master plan for Third Street Promenade 3.0 and Philbrook Museum of Art, just to name a few.
There are exciting things on the horizon for notNeutral and Guillermo as well. notNeutral is celebrating 20 years of product design. If you haven’t already, explore the new pieces in our award-winning VERO glassware collection, now available at Nordstrom, and LINO’s expanded line of new mug sizes. Guillermo introduced new colors that make the shirt even more suitable for work or for play, and as we enter 2020, there will be other exciting developments in the clothing line to follow.
