Founder Ricardo Torres brings over fifteen years of professional experience, shaped by time at some of the most respected architecture and interior design studios in the country, including Lake | Flato Architects and Neal Beckstedt Studio in New York.  His career includes a wide range of project types and scales: a new-build residence in Atlantic Beach, a historic remodel in Sag Harbor, and commercial, institutional, and residential projects completed with Lake | Flato, such as a museum in San Antonio, a park visitor center, and a private residence in West Texas, among a few others.  This trajectory has instilled a deep understanding of both craft and context, balancing the refinement of interiors with the durability and cultural resonance of architecture.  

The remodel of the Bonton Farms coffee house draws on the multicultural life of South Dallas and the feeling of grandma’s house, the place where you’re always fed, always welcome, and never in a hurry to leave. Furniture, fabrics and art are layered the way they are at home, and like any good kitchen, there’s always music on. Simple metalwork, wood and patterned textiles bring the farm inside. A communal table and smaller seating areas make room for conversation and the everyday encounters that give a neighborhood its soul.

Just south of Downtown Fort Worth, Near Southside is a neighborhood where industry, hospitals, and small businesses have long shaped the fabric of daily life.  In recent years it has become a creative district, where old warehouses and service buildings are reimagined as restaurants, offices, and cultural spaces.  This project embraces that spirit of reuse.  A family-run conveyor-belt company continues its work on site while we explore a vertical addition that brings multifamily housing together with office, retail, and hospitality.  Rather than clearing the slate, the design takes cues from what’s already there.  The warehouse bays, frame, and service ramps set the rhythm for structure, light, and circulation, tying production, living, and street life together.

The approach is simple, build on the strengths of the existing while opening new opportunities.  By layering new uses over old frameworks, the project reflects a larger commitment to resiliency, craft, and connection to place.   Reuse offers continuity not by simply enduring, but by engaging directly with time, carrying forward the marks and memories of a place while opening it to new ways of living, working, and gathering.

Townhomes have become one of Dallas’s default housing types, efficient to build, economical with land, and increasingly common across the city.  This project starts there, not by trying to reinvent the type, but by asking how three attached homes can respond more directly to living in Dallas.  The buildings are oriented to manage exposure and privacy between neighbors, with each home opening onto its own garden and a series of shaded outdoor spaces.  Deep overhangs, recessed glazing, and carefully placed openings limit direct solar gain while still bringing daylight deep into the interiors.  A hybrid structure pairs heavy timber with light gauge framing, using each where it makes the most sense and allowing portions of the structure to become part of the architecture.  Materials are limited and durable, chosen as much for how they weather as how they look on day one.  The result is still a familiar Dallas townhome, just one shaped more deliberately by climate, construction, landscape, and the way people actually live here.

This study looks at affordable housing in South Dallas beginning with what the city often leaves behind, discarded and donated building materials.  The goal is ambitious but straightforward. Stretch every dollar while creating homes that carry dignity, resilience, and long-term value.  Since 2023, the studio has studied and identified potential supply chains through material recovery programs, demolition crews, and local suppliers to see how overlooked resources can be reimagined as permanent housing.  

Dallas continues to face serious housing pressures. Evictions remain among the highest in the country, the unhoused population is rising, and durable affordable options are scarce.  The study responds with a replicable prototype that turns salvage and surplus into the foundation for permanent communities. The aim is to be resourceful, resilient, and dignified in both design and delivery.

Stayble, an Austin-based developer, is reimagining the sports complex as a social and sustainable hub.  The project introduces a new golf concept with eight short holes woven between bars, and shaded gathering areas, creating a continuous dialogue between play and leisure.  Alongside, four dedicated courts for pickleball, putting greens, and ping pong tables expand the athletic offering into a diverse recreation landscape.  

Regenerative design underpins the project, the greens are nourished through an innovative water hydration system that reuses and cycles resources efficiently, aligning with contemporary strategies for golf courses that reduce chemical inputs, restore native planting, and manage stormwater as an ecological asset.  A park for food trucks and shaded pavilions anchors the social side, fostering a lively mix of sport, dining, and community.

This tenant finish-out for Maplewood Group, a local hospitality and retail General Contractor, reimagines the workplace with the sophistication of high-end hospitality.  A U-shaped bank of offices frames an open conference area and an open collaboration counter, balancing privacy with collective energy.  The volume is clad in plank panel system inspired by the meticulous detailing of refined minimalist millwork, while the private suites are conceived as a cabinet of offices; each one crafted with the precision and presence of fine cabinetry, elevating workspace into architecture.

In collaboration with Landscape Architect, Studio Outside, the La Pulga Master Plan reimagines 14 acres along the Fort Worth Riverfront as a contemporary district deeply rooted in the life of the existing Pequeño Mexico Market and Event Center.  Rather than erase what is there, the design extends the character of the traditional open-air mercado into a broader cultural destination.  At its heart, a Tequila, Sotol, and Mezcal Tasting Room for Fort Worth’s La Pulga Spirits, anchors a series of event spaces unfolding from a hacienda-style courtyard.  The sequence extends southward through sotol fields and culminates in the adaptive reuse of an open-air pavilion, reborn as an event hall that recalls the atmosphere of Texas’s historic dance halls.  The structure is retrofitted from an existing steel frame and expressed through a new hybrid mass timber system, merging durability with warmth while amplifying the social character of the space.

Around this civic and cultural spine, new layers of program emerge: multi-family housing, creative storefronts, and a boutique hotel, each oriented to capture views of the revitalized riverfront, Panther Island, and the skyline beyond. The result is not a wholesale reinvention, but an expansion of the market’s legacy, an architecture that respects the community that gathers there while opening new possibilities for commerce, culture, and celebration along Fort Worth’s riverfront.

On a farm road in East Texas, an existing barn and nearby agricultural structures provide the starting point for a dwelling rooted in place yet open to reinvention.  Designed for an artist and curator turned farmers, FM900 is more than a homestead on 60 acres, it is a rural laboratory where art, agriculture, and community converge. A main residence, garage, and produce barn gather around a central courtyard oriented northwest toward a dense mott of trees.  The arrangement shelters against winter winds while opening southward to summer breezes.

The long, linear house recalls the proportions of an agrarian barn, anchored by a deep porch along its east façade.  Corrugated metal, concrete block, and cast-in-place concrete establish a restrained palette, softened by wood siding at the entry and within. Construction economics informed the initial exploration of pre-engineered systems.  As steel prices shifted during construction, the approach evolved, treating the building method as adaptable while maintaining the project’s spatial ambitions.  This quiet architecture frames the rhythms of the farm, the landscape, and the cultural life of its owners.  Here, the cultivation of soil, art, and community becomes part of the same daily practice.

Founded in 1975, Unity Manufacturing has grown from a family-run metalworks into a leading national producer of electrical enclosures for commercial and industrial applications.  As the company continues to evolve, so has the need for a workspace that reflects its craft, culture, and forward momentum.  The renovation serves as both renewal and recalibration, honoring Unity’s legacy while creating a more open, collaborative environment for its next chapter.  The design transforms an existing office within the company’s industrial park into a dynamic workplace and showroom that express Unity’s material intelligence.  Expansive work areas and a first-of-its-kind showroom celebrate product and process, allowing staff and clients to experience the company’s heritage through the lens of innovation.

All millwork and casework were developed in collaboration with Unity’s in-house fabrication team, reimagining standard electrical enclosures as refined, furniture-grade assemblies, part cabinet, part storage console, crafted with industrial precision.  Furniture and lighting selections extend this dialogue between craft and manufacture, recalling the ingenuity of Jean Prouvé and Frank Gehry’s studies of materials and mass production.  Finish choices emphasize daylight, non-toxic finishes, and durability, reinforcing a culture of care and continual growth, an architecture grounded in craft, rooted in history, and built for longevity and future evolution.

On the eighteenth floor of a Midtown East tower, two apartments, a two-bedroom and an adjoining one-bedroom, are combined to create a home that balances multigenerational living with the needs of a growing family.  The new plan provides an ensuite retreat for an aging mother-in-law while preserving openness and light for the young couple, both executives in fashion and advertising.  

Storage is conceived not as utility but as architecture itself, wardrobes unfolding as alcoves, millwork dissolving into wall planes, cabinetry doubling as display, expressing the ingenuity demanded by city living. Finishes pair natural stones with warm timber, accented by woven textures and brushed metals.  A curated mix of furniture and a growing art collection span history and ethos, lending warmth to a minimalist framework.   A study in austere minimalism and comfort, the project is contemporary yet restrained, with a character that feels unmistakably New York.

Across from Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena, the remodel of Taco Heads introduces a new kind of neighborhood anchor, one that bridges casual dining with the cultural energy of live music.  At its core is “Head Space” a new listening Taco Bar, a space that echoes the rhythms of the arena on event nights yet transforms into a quiet speakeasy after hours, offering intimate drinks and late-night bites.  

The reconfiguration activates the restaurant’s most visible corner, shifting the main entry from the back parking lot to the street-facing edge, where guests move fluidly between venue and patio.  This outdoor space, reimagined with openness and warmth, establishes the restaurant as part of the larger urban choreography of the district.  Architecturally, the project builds upon the existing structure while drawing from traditional Mexican materials and craft, warm natural finishes, textured surfaces, and bold color used through a modern, restrained lens.  The result is a refreshed landmark, tactile, contemporary, and deeply connected to both its cultural context and its community.

The remodel of Black Bird Grocers introduces a new neighborhood food hub that highlights specialty items and local products.  A strategic kitchen expansion supports their growing food program, centered on fresh sandwiches available for dine-in or takeout.  The design maintains clarity in circulation while reimagining the use of space to maximize flexibility for the store’s evolving trajectory.  The result is a modern neighborhood grocer that balances efficiency with warmth, providing a communal space that celebrates Austin’s local gritty contemporary character.