Trained as architects, Carlos Pastor and Helder Bochum are the faces of HC Studio Concept, an Interior Design brand, established in 2009 in the Algarve. Both are from Lisbon, but in 2007, fate had it that they would meet in the Algarve.
Carlos Pastor began his professional career in the textile industry and fashion, and among the different awards and honorable mentions he has received, he won the 1st prize for ‘Young Fashion Designers’ at Fil Moda in 1985. He says, “It was the first competition of its kind to be held in Portugal and it was the distinction that marked me the most… being the first I received, it was an encouraging beginning! At that time, the Portuguese Textile Industry was in the process of taking off on a new phase in its history and bit by bit, people were starting to talk about fashion designers and design”, Carlos recalls.
In the following years his work was connected to the textile sector, but his passion for architecture remained alive, as did the growing need to do a course in this area. “I grew up surrounded by drawing boards and tracing paper”, he says jokingly, remembering his father’s engineering practice.After finishing the course, he began a new chapter in his life, by beginning to work in architecture. And that is how his interest in interiors came about: “Perhaps because of my past, I like working with fabrics, silk, cotton and then to touch iron, concrete, choose wood and ceramic materials…”.

Opening a store in Valencia (Spain) was the next step he took. “I was tired of Lisbon and I decided to change my life radically”, he explains.Upon returning to Portugal, Vilamoura was his next port of call, where he ended up meeting Helder.Adopting “a less hectic and more linear rhythm”, Helder Bochum has always worked with architecture. Following some years working in Lisbon, a colleague invited him to take up a position in the Vale do Lobo office , which then led to a change in direction, leading him to “pick up his tools and baggage” and move south, he tells us. Some years later, he accepted the invitation of a renowned architect to work in his practice based in Vilamoura.