Founded by Paul Holt and Marc Hinshaw in 1980, this San Francisco-based practice opened its doors during the heyday of Postmodernism, a movement that led many architects to become interested in past historical styles and movements. In 1989 Peter Pfau and Wes Jones joined Holt and Hinshaw as partners, and the practice took on its full name, Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones Architecture.

By then it was clear that the firm was more interested in charting a new path than in revisiting architectural history. In Places, a journal affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, HHPJ wrote, "An architecture of the future is as impossible as the future itself. But an architecture for a present that extends into the future is both possible and, today, uniquely desirable."

Pfau and Jones left the firm in 1991 and 1993, respectively, to start their own practices.