INTRODUCTION
As professional collaborators and friends for 27 years, Luis Collado and Jose Luis de la Fuente have steered STL into its present position as one of the top design firms in Chicago.
Jose Luis and Luis provide a refreshing contrast to an industry that thrives in individual leadership by working as a design/think team, both as team heads and clients' advocates. Throughout this time they have infused STL with a spirit of creativity through a belief in active professional collaboration and teamwork. Today, STL is an international design practice with projects in the US, Europe and, Asia. STL’s work has gained global recognition through international publications and design magazines.
Jose Luis and Luis are both Licensed Architects who studied at the Architecture School (ETSAM) in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. They are business partners at STL Architects, an international design studio with offices in Chicago, Illinois.
After completing their schooling in Madrid, Luis pursued advanced studies in Urban Planning attending the Graduate School of Design (GDS) at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts while Jose Luis founded E6 Arquitectura winning an international competition for an Airport Control Tower in Alicante, Spain. For several years Luis and Jose Luis work together at the offices of SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) in Chicago developing projects and large scale urban planning efforts in Argentina, Mexico, China and Korea.
They are regular collaborators and invited lecturers at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC), Northwestern University (NU) as well as the Polytechnic University in Mumbai, India. Jose Luis and Luis are founding members of Chicago Design Matters (CDM) a group formed by Chicago architects and urban planners created with the goal to promote the architectural cultural legacy, both past and present, of Chicago around the world.