Substance Design principals Jose Donna Barry and Jose Pombo worked on the Stevie Eller Dance Theater at the University of Arizona (Tim Hursley)

Southern California-based HMC has announced its merger with Phoenix firm Substance Design Consortium. The move not only strengthens HMC’s presence in the southwest (the firm already has an office in Tempe), but it’s a homecoming for its CEO Randy Peterson, who started his career in Phoenix. The new Phoenix firm will be known as HMC+Substance Design. HMC has been busy lately gobbling up smaller firms. Earlier this year they merged with San Francisco firm Beverly Prior Architects, forming HMC+Beverly Prior Architects. At least HMC preserves some semblance of the merged firm’s previous identity with the resulting shared firm names, unlike AECOM which has erased the names of legendary firms like Ellerbe Becket, DMJM, and EDAW.