RDLR Architects

RDLR Architects is the trade name of Rey de la Reza Architects, Inc., a Houston firm founded in 1982. It works out of an office on Sampson Street in the East End and is certified as an MBE and SBE. Most of its book is public work, and its client list runs through the City of Houston, Harris and Fort Bend counties, the Houston Airport System, METRO, TxDOT, GSA and a long list of school districts. Portfolio categories include transit and urban design, schools, civic buildings, housing, aviation and maintenance facilities. On FLAMA, the tuition-free Frank Liu Jr. Academy for Music and Arts that OMA is carving out of the old Folgers coffee plant, RDLR is the architect of record.

Recent groundbreakings give a clearer picture of this practice than its category list does, because the mix is unusual.

In May 2026 the firm broke ground on restoration of the Council 60 Clubhouse, which it describes as one of only two Houston sites recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In late 2025 it completed The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD Apartments, a supportive housing project, and in March 2026 broke ground on a replacement Harris Center Northeast Clinic. The College of the Mainland Campus Services Building expansion, part of that college’s COMPASS 2025 master plan, broke ground in April 2026.

Transit work includes the METRO Buffalo Bayou Midday Lot, a layover facility where long-range buses sit between routes. It is not a glamorous building type, and it is exactly the kind of operations facility that keeps a transit system running.

Adaptive reuse has produced two openings in quick succession. The revitalized 59 Diner site at 3801 Farnham Street in Upper Kirby reopened as Pinkerton’s Barbecue in March 2026, and the MAM Hamill Education and Workforce Training Center had its grand opening the same month.

At neighborhood scale, the firm leads architectural design of shade structures at Burnett Bayland Park serving Houston’s Gulfton community, and worked on a Harris County Sheriff’s Office and community center groundbreaking in October 2025.

Supportive housing, a mental health clinic, a historic clubhouse, a bus layover lot, a barbecue restaurant, park shade structures and a sheriff’s facility is a deliberately wide range for a firm of this size, and it reflects the organizing idea the practice states for itself: architecture driven by community.

Certification matters commercially on this kind of work. The firm is a certified Minority Business Enterprise and Small Business Enterprise, which is directly relevant to participation goals on public contracts. Additional unnamed certification logos appear on its site, so there may be further designations worth confirming directly.

The team page lists 34 people, including six principals and several senior associates. Marketing Director Sarah De Ita, CPSM received SMPS Houston’s Rock of the Chapter member achievement award in October 2025.

The office is at 800 Sampson Street, Suite 104, reachable at 713.868.3121.