A low aspect ratio quasi-axisymmetric stellarator, CHS-qa, has been designed. An optimization code has been used to design a magnetic field configuration with evaluations of the following physical quantities: quasi-axisymmetry, rotational transform, MHD stability and alpha particle collisionless confinement. It is shown that the electron neoclassical diffusion coefficient is similar to that of tokamaks for the low collisional regime. A self-consistent equilibrium with bootstrap current confirms the global mode stability up to 130 kA for an R = 1.5 m and Bt = 1.5 T device. The neoclassical plasma rotation viscosity is greatly suppressed compared with that of conventional stellarators. The engineering design was completed with 20 main modular coils and auxiliary coils, which provide flexibility of configuration in experiments for confinement improvement and MHDstability.