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MICHAEL HSU A rchitect Michael Hsu is making his mark on Texas one city at a time. The Houston native cut his teeth in the mid-1990s with the late Austin architect Dick Clark, who helped define the capital city's rustic modernism. While at the firm, Hsu designed warm Japanese farmhouse interiors for the restaurant Uchi, garnering him a slew of accolades and awards. "That project was incredibly formative for me, and it happened at a time when food culture was just starting to take root in Austin," Hsu says. Since opening offices there in 2005, he has put his creative stamp on the city, via restaurants, hotels, office buildings, and mixed-use condos. The Line Austin hotel, Hsu's neo-Brutalist refresh of a 1960s building, opened in 2018 and landed on Conde Nast Traveler's April 2019 Hot List of top hotels in the world. The block- long South Congress Hotel in Austin, which opened in 2015, is classic Hsu: Democratic and welcoming, the hotel is a destination for both travelers and the public, who are drawn to its courtyard cafe, coffee shop, fine-dining restaurant, and lobby with ample seating. He's sought after across Texas, with eight projects under his belt in Dallas. In Houston, Hsu opens an office in August on 19th Street in the Heights, and about 20 Houston projects are in the works. Among them are the mixed-use development 2132 Bissonnet, with the already much-loved restaurant Tropicales on the ground floor; the M-K-T retail and office project in the Heights, with four acres of green space and 30 merchants and restaurants; Southside Commons, formerly the Palace Bowling Lanes on Bellaire in Southside Place, which will house 80,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and offices; Understory, a massive downtown food hall in a triple-story atrium at the base of Bank of America Tower; and 1801 Post Oak Blvd, the just-announced Zadok family's mixed-use building with a new Zadok Jewelers store, retail, offices, and restaurants. Michael Hsu: In His Words DNA. My mother grew up in Taiwan and was a painter, chef, and housewife. My father ON FIRE AUSTIN'S CELEBRATED ARCHITECT HAS HIS FINGER ON SOME OF HOUSTON'S MOST EXCITING PROJECTS — AND A NEW MICHAEL HSU OFFICE OF ARCHITECTURE. B Y R E B E C C A S H E R M A N The neo-Brutalist Line hotel, Austin Michael Hsu CHASE DANIEL