Issued For Construction

Jason Fung is the founder and principal of Jason Fung Architect, a boutique architecture practice based in Toronto, Canada. He grew up in Markham, Ontario, in a middle income household where his parents encouraged both academic rigor and creative exploration. Alongside strong grounding in math and science at school, he spent weekends in visual art classes and piano lessons, developing early skills...

Marti Gallucci is a Partner and Design Director at Mason Studio, where she has been a key part of the firm’s evolution for over 13 years. She joined the studio as an intern during her fourth year of university, became its first employee, and has grown alongside the practice as it expanded into a multidisciplinary team of approximately 25 people. Her work spans hospitality, restaurants, hotels, pri...

Nicolas Koff, Uros Novakovic, and Sebastian Bartnicki are the founding partners of Office Ou, a practice shaped as much by lived experience and cultural memory as by formal architectural training. Each arrived at architecture indirectly, carrying with them deep impressions of place, history, and making that would later converge into a shared way of working. Nico grew up in Paris, fascinated by arc...

Lara Nancy Cupido is a Toronto born interior designer and the founder and principal of LN Studio, a full service firm based in Caledon, Ontario. Raised just north of Toronto in an Italian family with an artistic mother and entrepreneurial father, she grew up with a natural blend of creativity and business sense that now underpins her practice. Lara discovered design at the University of Toronto, w...

Born in Medicine Hat and raised across the Prairies, Kevin Weiss grew up moving from city to city, an experience that shaped his appreciation for stability and place. A competitive 1500-metre runner in his youth, he also spent countless hours drawing, experimenting with printmaking, and silkscreening at home. Those creative roots eventually steered him toward architecture, where mentors like Barry...

Jane Lockhart is a Toronto-based interior designer, television personality, author, and colour expert whose career spans nearly three decades. She founded Jane Lockhart Design in 1997, building on technical training, hands-on work, and a formative early career with Benjamin Moore, where she developed deep expertise in colour, materials, and store planning. Raised in Etobicoke, Toronto, Jane’s pass...

The first roundtable series: The Missing Middle, is a candid conversation on how cities can deliver more housing at a scale between single family homes and towers. The talented panel brings together Naama Blonder of Smart Density, Sue-Jean Chung of Studio JCI, Evan Saskin of Blue Lion Building, and Gabriel Fain of Gabriel Fain Architects. Together they unpack what the missing middle means, why it...

Arancha González Bernardo and Michael Fohring are the co-founders of Odami, a Toronto-based architecture and design studio shaped by their international backgrounds and complementary creative perspectives. Arancha, originally from Avilés in Asturias, Spain, grew up surrounded by her family’s fabric and clothing shops, where her early interest in making and material exploration first took form. She...

Murray Legge is an award-winning architect based in Austin, Texas, originally from Whitevale, Ontario, a rural community outside Toronto. Growing up surrounded by farmland while his father worked as an aeronautical engineer and his mother as a nurse, Murray developed an appreciation for craft, structure, and precision early in life. Initially drawn to art and photography with ambitions of becoming...

Jeff Cogliati is a Canadian architect and the founder of Bloom Architects, an emerging Toronto-based studio recognized as one of the country’s first fully AI driven architecture practices. Born and raised in Windsor, 1Ontario, Jeff’s early exposure to Detroit’s rich Art Deco skyline shaped his lifelong interest in design. He began his architectural education at St. Clair College and later transfer...

Aleris Rodgers and Francesco Valente-Gorjup are the co-founders of Studio VAARO, a Toronto architecture practice focused on thoughtful, holistic design from concept through construction. They met while completing their Master of Architecture at UCLA and later worked in Europe and Asia, including several years with Herzog & de Meuron. There, Francesco developed deep expertise in façades and bui...

Jason Halter is a Toronto-based designer and founder of Wonder Inc, an interdisciplinary studio known for its explorations in modular and prefabricated construction, small-scale architectural design, and graphic and spatial design. Raised in Winnipeg in a creative family surrounded by books, art, and discussions of building, he developed an early fascination with design while spending time on cons...

Pat Hanson is a founding principal of gh3*, a Toronto-based architecture, landscape, and urban design practice recognized for its clarity, precision, and integration of natural and built form. Raised in a Norwegian-Italian farming community near Regina, Saskatchewan, she developed an early affinity for making and exploring the outdoors before studying fine art and later discovering architecture at...

Robert Davidov is the founder and director of Davidov Architects, a Melbourne-based architecture and interiors practice established in 2011. His studio focuses on residential work across metropolitan Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula, from new homes and multi-residential developments to heritage alterations and additions, applying a pared-back, materially expressive approach. Raised in Melbou...

For the first time ever, Bruce Kuwabara, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg sit down together to share the story of founding KPMB and shaping it into one of Canada’s most influential architectural practices. Established in 1987, KPMB has earned more than 400 awards, including 18 Governor General Medals in Architecture, and completed over 31 million square feet of projects spanning education, h...

In this episode of Behind the Build , Kelly Alvarez Doran joins, both architect and co-founder of Ha/f Climate Design. Based in London and working internationally, Kelly shares the journey that led him from growing up in Winnipeg, studying at the University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto, to practicing across Africa and Europe before launching his practice. Ha/f Climate Design emerged f...

Magnus Ström is the founder and Principal Architect of Ström Architects , a UK-based practice internationally recognized for its refined, modernist approach to residential design. Originally from Sweden, Magnus was surrounded by functionalist architecture from an early age—drawn to clean lines and minimalist forms that would later define his work. His parents’ hands-on building projects and honest...

Andrew Kline, Principal at Workshop APD, joins Behind the Build to share a career built on craft, risk, and mentorship. Raised in rural Ohio, his creativity was first inspired by his grandfather, a graphic artist, and nurtured by art teacher Lois Bachman, who encouraged him to pursue art school. After studying at Columbus College of Art & Design and completing a master’s at Cranbrook Academy o...

This episode was recorded live at the University of Waterloo before an audience of students, alumni, and colleagues. Four graduates returned to share their journeys: Carol Phillips (Moriyama Teshima Architects), Lisa D’Abbondanza (Arcadis), Robert Kastelic (Atelier Kastelic Buffey—AKB), and Drew Mandel (Drew Mandel Architects—DMA). Together they reflected on choosing Waterloo, the impact of its cu...

Katherine Chia, FAIA, is the co-founder and co-principal of Desai | Chia Architecture, a New York City practice she leads with her husband and partner, Arjun Desai. Her path to architecture began with a childhood immersed in creativity. Inspired by her grandfather’s woodworking and Chinese brush painting, Kathy developed an early love of making. At Amherst College she pursued a liberal arts educat...

Evan Saskin is an architect, builder, and founder of Blue Lion Building, an architect-led design-build practice in Toronto and now, Halifax, Nova Scotia, dedicated to creating thoughtful infill housing. Raised in a family steeped in construction—his grandfather an engineer and his father a McGill-trained architect and builder—Evan grew up surrounded by drafting tables and construction sites. Child...

Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Gordon Magnin discovered his creative spark early through visits to an architect’s studio where renderings and model building captivated his imagination, his interest in art, drawing and technical design guiding him through middle and high school. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Structural Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, then practiced as a stru...

Bishop McDowell is a design-forward architecture practice based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, co-founded by Matthew Bishop and Lucas McDowell in May 2024. Long-time collaborators, the two met while working at a Halifax-based architecture firm, where they spent years refining their skills on residential projects and developing a mutual respect for each other’s approach to design, detail, and constructio...

Don Schmitt is a founding partner of Diamond Schmitt Architects, one of Canada’s most respected architectural practices. He was born in South Porcupine, a small mining town in northern Ontario, and grew up surrounded by nature. After moving to Toronto in his teens, he was introduced to the city’s architecture while attending high school near the University of Toronto. A Christmas gift of The Maste...

Janna Levitt is a founding partner of LGA Architectural Partners and a respected leader in socially conscious architecture in Canada. Raised in a Toronto home filled with artists—her mother a celebrated ceramicist who participated in a short-lived federal program modeled on Japan’s National Treasures—Janna grew up surrounded by creativity, community, and cultural exchange. She attended Nova Scotia...