LUIS COLASUONNO

As a native of Argentina, Luis Colasuonno brings to architecture a multi-cultural background.  He has studied and practiced architecture in South America as well as in the United States for 40+ years. Luis believes that our physical environment can be understood as the three dimensional becoming of our culture. It is within this framework that architecture can be seen as a fundamental force in defining individuals within a particular culture. 

Luis has architectural degrees from the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He has taught architecture at Woodbury, USC and Cal Poly Pomona. Over the years, his work has received numerous awards and been featured in several publications. In April 2000, Luis notably received the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for outstanding and invaluable service to the community. Most recently in 2024, Luis authored a book titled Architecture and the Art of Storytelling: The Language & Meaning of Spaces Around Us.

In 1983, he co-founded Hatch-Colasuonno Studio with fellow architect/artist Harriet Hatch. The firm focused on affordable housing, civic, mixed-use, residential and institutional projects in the Los Angeles region. The Studio strived to examine the ways in which architecture is understood and how it evolves into meaningful spatial and formal experiences through the implementation of formal and conceptual dialogues with the cultural as well as the physical environment.

Merging with Tima Bell 30 years later, they formed a partnership that continued the affordable housing work under the banner of HC+RA. Now that collaboration continues at Bell Design Group, where Luis guides projects of all types with a keen eye for detail, function, form and user experience.

Directing his role as Senior Design Associate is Luis’ belief that a rational approach to architectural theory is of fundamental importance to respond to the postulates of cultural relativism and obscurantism, motivated by his interest in philosophy and his concern for solid theoretical foundations. 

As an educator and mentor at BDG, his primary goal has always been to challenge young minds to be curious about their world, to understand architecture in all its implications; and, in general, to be able to develop a critical cultural stand. As a practitioner, he perceives the role of his practice to be a center for the application of concerns about the environment and the world in general through the design of specific projects.