Our Story
Three architects, one vision - creating spaces that actually matter
Look, we're not gonna feed you some polished origin story about how we always knew we'd change architecture forever. Truth is, it started over coffee and frustration back in 2011.
Marcus, Avi, and Elena met while working on a condo project downtown that was... well, let's just say it lacked soul. Cookie-cutter layouts, zero personality, and clients who deserved way better. We'd grab drinks after site visits and sketch ideas on napkins - real ones that considered how people actually live, not just what looks good in renderings.
Fast forward a year and we'd pooled our savings, rented a shoebox office on Bay Street, and landed our first client through sheer persistence. That first project - a family home in Rosedale - taught us everything. The clients didn't want a showpiece, they wanted a place where their kids could grow up and memories could happen. That's when it clicked for us.
Now we're thirteen years in with a team of twenty-something talented people who actually give a damn. We've done penthouses, heritage restorations, commercial spaces, and even a couple of churches. Every project's different, but our approach hasn't changed - listen more than you talk, design for the long haul, and never forget that buildings are for people.
Principal Architect & Co-Founder
Marcus is our residential guy through and through. Grew up in Vancouver watching his carpenter dad work, which explains his obsession with craft and detail. He's got this uncanny ability to read between the lines when clients talk - figuring out what they actually need versus what they think they want.
Graduated from Waterloo's architecture program in '04, spent six years at a big firm doing towers (hated every minute), then decided life's too short for boring work. His personal portfolio includes over forty custom homes and he still gets excited about joinery details like a kid in a candy store.
When he's not sketching or on-site, you'll find him restoring his 1920s bungalow in the Beaches or arguing about Brutalism at dinner parties. Drives a beat-up truck that's older than some of our junior architects.
Principal Architect & Co-Founder
Avi handles our commercial and mixed-use projects, and he's weirdly good at making office spaces feel human. Came to Toronto from Mumbai in '02 for grad school at U of T and never left. His background gives him this perspective on density and urban living that honestly makes the rest of us jealous.
Before OTQ, he worked on three major transit hubs and a bunch of institutional projects. He's the one who pushes us on sustainability and adaptive reuse - not because it's trendy, but because he genuinely believes we've gotta stop tearing everything down and starting over.
Outside work? He's deep into photography, cycles everywhere regardless of weather, and makes the best chai in the office. His kids sometimes show up after school and critique our models, which is honestly pretty helpful.
Principal Architect & Co-Founder
Elena's our heritage restoration specialist and interior space wizard. She's from Montreal originally, did her undergrad at McGill then worked in Paris for three years before landing in Toronto. That European training shows - she's got this respect for history and context that keeps us grounded.
She leads all our restoration projects and honestly, watching her negotiate with heritage committees is like watching a masterclass in patience and persuasion. She fights hard for good design but knows exactly when to compromise and when to dig in.
Elena's also our go-to for spatial planning and interiors. She thinks in three dimensions in a way that's almost spooky. Off the clock, she's renovating a triplex in Little Italy, collects vintage furniture, and has strong opinions about wine that she'll share whether you ask or not.
We spend way more time listening than most architects do. Every client's different, every site tells its own story. You can't design something meaningful if you're already planning the concept before the conversation's done. We've scrapped entire preliminary designs because we realized we missed something important in the brief. That's just part of the process.
Buildings don't exist in a vacuum. Whether it's a heritage neighborhood or a commercial district, what we design needs to belong there. That doesn't mean copying what's around - sometimes contrast is exactly right - but it means we're paying attention. Toronto's got too much thoughtless architecture already, and we're not adding to that pile.
We don't have a separate "green design" service because sustainable thinking should be baked into everything from day one. Material choices, orientation, systems, longevity - it's all connected. The greenest building is often the one that already exists, so we're big on adaptive reuse when it makes sense. And we're honest when something sustainable isn't practical for a project - greenwashing helps nobody.
Anyone can draw a pretty elevation. The hard part is making sure it actually works when it's built. We're obsessive about construction details, material transitions, how light moves through spaces. Marcus still does site visits on projects from five years ago just to see how they're aging. That's the kind of practice we run - we care about the built result, not just the portfolio photos.
Spaces need to work for how people actually live, not some idealized version. Families are messy. Businesses evolve. Needs change over time. We design with flexibility built in where it matters, and permanence where it counts. A house that looks amazing in photos but doesn't function for the family who lives there? That's not architecture, that's sculpture.
Toronto, ON
Three frustrated architects leave their jobs, rent a tiny office, and convince their first client to take a chance on them. The Rosedale House project takes eighteen months and teaches us more than a decade of prior experience combined.
King West
Land our first commercial project - a boutique office conversion in an old garment factory. The design wins a local heritage award and suddenly we're on the map for adaptive reuse work. Also hire our first two employees who aren't us.
Bay Street Expansion
Move to a bigger space when our team hits twelve people. Nearly go broke taking on too many projects at once. Learn the hard way that growth needs to be deliberate. Elena starts specializing full-time in heritage work after completing three Victorian restoration projects back-to-back.
Practice-Wide Shift
Complete our first Passive House project and it changes everything. We commit to making sustainability central to every project, not just an add-on service. Invest in training the whole team on energy modeling and green building standards. Costs us some clients who weren't ready for that, but attracts the ones we actually want.
National Stage
Win the Governor General's Medal for the Distillery District mixed-use project. Get featured in Azure and Canadian Architect. More importantly, that project proves we can handle complex urban sites with multiple stakeholders. Team grows to twenty.
Remote Work Era
Like everyone, we pivot to remote work overnight. Surprisingly doesn't kill us - maybe makes us better at communication. Start designing residential projects with actual home offices because suddenly everyone gets why that matters. Launch our urban planning division focusing on 15-minute neighborhoods.
Looking Forward
Thirteen years in and we've completed over sixty projects across residential, commercial, and institutional sectors. Team's at twenty-four people. Currently working on our largest project yet - a mixed-use development in Liberty Village. Still operating out of that Bay Street office, though we finally took over the whole floor.
2024 and Beyond
We're exploring mass timber construction, deepening our work in affordable housing, and thinking about opening a small satellite office in Vancouver. But mostly? We're just trying to keep doing good work with good people. That's always been the plan.
We're not for everyone, and that's okay. Our process is collaborative but thorough. We ask a lot of questions, push back when something doesn't make sense, and don't just say yes to everything.
Best clients are the ones who value the process as much as the result. People who understand that good architecture takes time and trust. If you're looking for someone to just execute your Pinterest board, we're probably not the right fit. But if you want partners who'll challenge you to think bigger while keeping you grounded in reality? Let's talk.
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