RIOS is a Los Angeles-based design collective with offices in London, Singapore, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Boulder, and Austin. The RIOS landscape practice is fueled by curiosity and compassion for the communities where we work. We start each project as landscape detectives searching for clues in the unique circumstances of each site and its context. Every place has a story to tell as we explore the particularities of culture, environment, and history. Our design process embraces many points of view to translate deep insights into authentic form through lively collaborations with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders. Together, we amplify the intrinsic identity of a place to make landscapes of accessible sophistication that are exuberant, multisensory, and dynamic.
In 1985, Mark Rios launched RIOS with a singular vision: to imagine, design, and build complete environments. RIOS has grown into a transdisciplinary practice spanning architecture, landscape architecture, planning, urban design, branding, and environmental graphics. Our landscape designers collaborate with internal and external design partners to deliver a wide range of work, from urban parks and cultural institutions to mixed-use environments and private residences. Our willful optimism gives us agency to invent solutions to complex problems. We enjoy expanding the boundaries of landscape architecture by exploring ideas across scales from custom site furnishings to regional conservation strategies.
We believe nature is beautiful, healing, and essential, and that every person has a right to enjoy its pleasures. At RIOS, our projects are opportunities to respond holistically to the great challenges facing society, from environmental justice and equitable access to climate change and habitat loss. We sponsor internal research initiatives to investigate issues such as the wild urban interface, extreme heat, pollinators, and play for all. We weave findings from these efforts into our design work in a process of resourceful experimentation that propels our work forward. We also carefully document the landscape performance benefits of the places we make, so that this cycle of innovation contributes to a culture of learning and adaptation.
RIOS’s 30+ year legacy of landscape design excellence has been recognized with numerous national and regional ASLA awards, publications, and as a finalist for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards. While the firm is best known for decades of creating signature places around Los Angeles, including Grand Park in Downtown LA and the city’s iconic Hollywood Bowl, the landscape team works actively across the country on significant public and private commissions. Notable current works include Wyatt Square for the Performing Arts in Downtown Houston, Reimagining Skyline Park in Denver, Palm Springs Central Park, the Descanso Gardens Master Plan, and the Philbrook Museum of Art and Gardens in Tulsa. As we look toward work with new clients, collaborators, and communities in the years ahead, we are mindful of our commitment to tell the story of place with design that is inclusive, hopeful, and inspired.
Published on January 9, 2023
