HGA’s San Jose office is celebrating a landmark milestone in 2022—50 years of designing spaces for leading start-up and technology companies in California’s Silicon Valley. The San Jose practice has rapidly evolved alongside the world-famous region itself, and its designers have had a hand in some of the most influential office projects in the area since 1972.
Internationally recognized leaders of innovation have entrusted the HGA San Jose team with molding their Bay Area workspaces including Adobe, Apple, BD Biosciences, Boston Scientific, Google, Hitachi, LinkedIn, Lockheed Martin and SAP.
HGA’s San Jose office furthers the legacy that was started 50 years ago by the founders of ReelGrobman & Associates. Throughout the 1970s and on, the team at ReelGrobman paralleled the explosive growth of Silicon Valley’s technology industry, working with clients including ITEL Corp, Citibank, Facebook, Motorola, Netflix, Netscape, NVIDIA and Philips Electronics in addition to designing one of the first entirely open office concepts in the area for the National Advanced Systems headquarters.
“In this hotbed of innovation, the challenge is always there to run with the latest R+D technology and the ever-evolving environments that support them. Being able to support our clients to change the world means it’s always fresh and exciting,” said Scott Colson, principal at HGA.
When HGA acquired ReelGrobman in 2015, a new chapter for the team’s portfolio was opened, backed by a national network of multi-disciplinary resources. In addition to the firm’s extensive corporate and healthcare client base, the roster quickly expanded to include aerospace, science and technology industries.
The HGA acquisition further cemented the office’s role as a design leader in one of the world’s most innovative geographic areas, and members of ReelGrobman’s leadership team came to the forefront as experts guiding HGA’s practice in Silicon Valley. Many of those individuals are still a part of the HGA team today, including Scott Colson, AIA, LEED AP, who has recently passed the reigns as San Jose office director to Susan Foong, LEED AP ID+C, CCIDC, WELL AP; Lisa Macaluso, IIDA, LEED AP, national interior design business development leader; Winfield Roney, AIA, LEED AP, corporate market sector leader; and Nima Gujar, LEED AP, WELL AP, principal.
“As a life-long San Jose resident, my career grew alongside Silicon Valley. Since Covid-19, our clients have had to pivot but our approach to projects remains the same – a deeply personal approach to find the very best solutions,” said Lisa Macaluso, principal and National Interior Design Business Development Leader.
HGA’s design philosophy proved a strong fit for clients in the region and a valuable support for the existing ReelGrobman team. The firm’s interdisciplinary, people-first approach backed by critical insight into the unique needs, culture and design goals of its clients to drive innovative, purposeful and enduring solutions has served clients across Silicon Valley. The dedicated San Jose team benefits from a research-based design focus as well as access to and collaboration with HGA’s unique nationwide collective of in-house specialists—process engineers, design thinking specialists, evidence-based researchers and others.
Learn more about HGA’s San Jose portfolio here. Cheers to 50 great years in San Jose, and here’s to 50 more!
In September 2022, HGA hosted a tour of our San Jose office for the AIA National Women’s Leadership Summit. See photos from the tour below.
