Helping communities build environments for gathering and collaborating is fundamental to what our studio does, and it is what drives our best work. A lot of people think that architecture is about building walls, but the true power of what we do is removing barriers for our clients.
Jim Moore, HGA Principal Arts, Community, and Education Practice Group Leader
Nationally recognized, awardwinning design firm.
HGA is an interdisciplinary design firm committed to making a positive, lasting impact for our clients and communities through research-based, holistic solutions. We believe that great design requires a sense of curiosity—forming deep insight into our clients, their contexts, and the human condition.
As a collective of design professionals working together—across 13 offices with diverse backgrounds and disciplines—we seek to understand and optimize all aspects of each unique environment: human experience, cultural significance, technical rigor, systems performance, and resilience.
HGA offers a full complement of architecture, planning, design, and engineering services— we build teams to provide the best fit for each project.
1,000+
A small, focused studio with national resources.
Passionate about architecture that stimulates creativity, inspires learning, and cultivates community, HGA’s Arts, Community and Education (ACE) practice is a small, specialized studio with a robust national reputation for design excellence. As a dedicated collective of architects, engineers, and planners, the studio has a wealth of expertise in the planning and design for mission-driven institutions.
Balancing big picture vision with technical expertise, HGA crafts an inclusive engagement process tailored to meet the vision of each client and carry the project successfully through all phases of design, construction and occupancy.
HGA’s ACE practice has expanded into the Northeast within the Boston office. We seek to partner with mission-driven clients, leveraging design to answer today’s most pressing questions.
As arts experiences allow more participation, access, and engagement, so must the spaces that support them.
Arts and cultural centers have evolved into interactive destinations for community happenings, performance, exhibit, and experimentation. Designing treasured cultural facilities requires expertise, imagination, and innovation. At their very core, these are places for people to connect—to ideas, to artists, to knowledge, to beauty, and to each other. At the same time, they are institutions with defined needs, objectives, and expectations.
Over the past six decades, we have developed a national reputation for designing extraordinary cultural facilities that artfully balance form with function. Our breadth of experience and expertise gives us a unique view of peer benchmarks and technical innovations relevant to our clients.
How can design be part of the solution for today’s most pressing challenges?
“Every project can be a platform for addressing big issues and providing creative solutions... to inform progress towards a zero-carbon, equitable, resilient and healthy built environment.”
—AIA Framework for Design Excellence
HGA brings a holistic design lens to each endeavor.
The built environment is at the intersection of changes in technology, energy supply, climate, and business models—all impacting the human experience. Each ecosystem, site, and project vision demands a unique solution to select. We help our clients prepare for an evolving future, balancing function and beauty.
HGA seeks to collaborate with you to best understand your campus context and create spaces that address the complexities of the past with a focus on the future. A collective approach to venues and buildings that will allow for open discourse: conversations that can be intellectually challenging and socially compelling.
We work directly with client stakeholders to:
• Ground design in its unique social, cultural, historical, and environmental context
• Challenge the status quo in experience, program, space, and organizations
• Understand complex social dynamics and how they affect project stakeholders
• Empower people and communities to imagine better futures
• Push the boundaries of practice for architecture and design
HGA’s researchers and engagement specialists facilitated a series of student-led workshops and crafted spatial surveys—providing key insight design before any solutions were considered. For example, survey data showed that some demographics of students were more likely to take a circuitous route to get to the building, likely due to poor lighting and less perceived safety on the most direct path. Design must consider the full experience of building users.
We must think beyond meeting the letter of accessibility codes and make spaces that are comfortable and welcoming to all, while balancing physical constraints and clarity of design ideas. Thinking about all levels of physical abilities and neurodiversity enhances the experience and promotes a gracious environment for learning and living.
How can design strengthen an institution’s core identity?
Our interdisciplinary teams are skilled at planning, programming, and engagement. We begin by understanding the specific identity of each campus, city, group of stakeholders and history to help build upon legacy.
HGA brings together big picture vision with strategic implementation.
The most successful projects enhance the natural surroundings, whether creating programmed exterior spaces or curating views to and from the landscape.
The way we interact is changing. Remote digital exchanges are easy - in person spaces must be worth the effort. Shared spaces increasingly need to accommodate technology and provide a variety and choice for different types of learners.
Learn more about Winona State University Comprehensive Facilities Plan
HGA’s higher education studio is a dedicated collective of architects, engineers, planners, researchers, and specialists with a wealth of expertise in the planning and design of campuses and buildings for education, creating sustainable environments that cultivate creativity, foster excellence and engage community.
Learn more about Macalester College Comprehensive Campus Plan
Learn more about Bowdoin College Campus Evolution
“To walk through the Bowdoin campus is to walk through the history of American architecture. The student, who President Hyde hoped would learn ‘to count art an intimate friend,’ lives daily with that opportunity. The very campus is part of the liberal arts experience at Bowdoin.”
Physical spaces must evolve alongside the purpose and values of an institution. In partnership with your institution, we learn and build upon your established mission, creating impactful, forward-looking spaces that acknowledge legacy with an eye to the future.
What spaces will best support the mission and purpose of each institution?
Today, institutions under pressure to do more with less. Program driven buildings must rise to the top of the class. HGA’s expertise in key typologies makes us invaluable partners as you envision, design, and build the future of academic programs, learning, and creative spaces. HGA helps you make the most of whatever space you have.
Spaces that support your best work, and look good while they do it.
Spaces must be purposefully constructed, yet adaptable and dynamic. Back of house, teaching and maker spaces can engage expanded users by being easy to use, safe and welcoming.
Designs that let the performance take center stage.
Materiality and form can be crafted to respond to acoustic, lighting, and functional needs, and seamlessly integrate infrastructure. The architecture becomes an immersive part of the performance experience.
Details that are ready for their close-up.
The materials and construction in a project should match the care, quality, and creativity that occurs by building users. Commitment to design investigations with quality materials, thoughtfully assembled stand the test of time.
“Simplicity
Digital and analog together, expanding potential.
The cutting edge is a line that constantly shifts — create spaces that can go beyond. Putting advanced technology in the hands of the users.
