ORTO Studio in downtown San Diego's Bankers Hill district operates from First Avenue as a design-build architecture practice founded by Woodbury University–trained and Rome-educated architectural designer Tomás R. Ortiz, who also holds a general contractor's license through the affiliated Design Force Builders. The studio's residential work earned First Place in Residential Architecture at the 2025 Premio Noldi Schreck—one of Mexico's most recognized architecture awards—reflecting a cross-border practice that spans custom homes and hospitality projects in both California and Baja, a binational design corridor also served by Bankers Hill neighbor Studio E Architects. Identified as both Latino-owned and disabled-owned, ORTO Studio was rebuilt after a life-altering accident left the founder's dominant arm permanently paralyzed, an experience that reoriented the practice around material authenticity, proportion, and the integrated craft of the master-builder tradition. Each project starts with site-specific analysis of landscape, climate, and topography, producing designs rooted in natural light and unobstructed spatial flow rather than applied decoration. The design-build model unifies architectural vision with hands-on construction oversight, eliminating the coordination gap between designer and contractor that often inflates budgets—a vertical integration mirrored by JWDA Architects on residential and institutional projects elsewhere in Bankers Hill. ORTO's most complex engagements involve ground-up custom residences in California and Baja requiring concurrent architectural design, contractor-led construction, and sustainable-material sourcing under a single design-build agreement.