HKS

Harwood K. Smith founded HKS in Dallas in 1939, arriving from Evanston, Illinois, with a painter’s training from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a decision to put it to work in architecture. The Texas character the firm still claims, entrepreneurial, proud, resourceful and independent, dates from that beginning, as does the ambition to inspire through design.

HKS now works as architects, designers, advisors and planners, with a portfolio weighted toward healthcare and education but reaching into stadiums, hospitality and mixed use: Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Canary Wharf College, Hotel Indigo Nanjing Garden Expo, Auckland Stadium. SoFi Stadium took a 2024 AIA Architecture Award and the UC San Diego Living and Learning Neighborhood a 2023 COTE Top Ten. Citizen HKS, its public-interest arm, and HKS xBE carry the practice into community work.