Who We Are

We're not your typical architecture firm that throws around fancy words and pretends every project's gonna change the world. We're a bunch of folks who genuinely care about buildings - the old ones that tell stories and the new ones that'll become tomorrow's history.

How This All Started

Back in 2009, Sarah Gildraven and Marcus Quintal met during a heritage restoration project in Old Montreal. She was obsessed with sustainable materials, he couldn't stop talking about preserving architectural DNA. Turns out, those two things fit together better than anyone expected.

We set up shop in Toronto with one simple idea: what if we stopped treating old buildings like obstacles and new buildings like they've got no soul? The city's changing fast, and yeah, progress is great - but there's wisdom in those brick facades and timber frames that took a century to learn.

Fifteen years later, we've grown from just the two of us sketching at a coffee shop to a team of twenty-something architects, designers, and consultants. We've messed up, learned a ton, and built some stuff we're genuinely proud of.

150+

Projects Completed

23

Team Members

15

Years Running

The Founders

The two people who started this whole thing

Sarah Gildraven

Co-Founder & Principal Architect

Sarah's the one who'll spend three weeks researching a single material to make sure it's actually sustainable and not just greenwashing. She did her thesis on adaptive reuse in Copenhagen and hasn't stopped thinking about circular economy since.

Education: M.Arch, University of Toronto
LEED AP BD+C, Passive House Designer

"Every building's got a carbon footprint - our job's to make it as light as possible while keeping people happy inside."

Marcus Quintal

Co-Founder & Heritage Director

Marcus grew up in a 1890s rowhouse in Montreal and basically spent his childhood watching his dad restore it. He's got this weird ability to read buildings - knows what's hiding behind drywall just by looking at the outside. Kinda spooky, honestly useful.

Education: M.Arch, McGill University
Heritage Conservation Specialist

"Old buildings aren't museums - they're living things that need to earn their keep in the modern world."

Our Journey

Some highlights from the past fifteen years

2009 - The Beginning

Started in a cramped office above a pizza place on Queen West. The smell was distracting but the rent was cheap. Landed our first residential project through a friend-of-a-friend situation.

2012 - First Heritage Win

Got picked to restore the old Dominion Bank building on King Street. Took eighteen months and we made every mistake in the book, but it taught us more than any textbook ever could. The building's still standing, so that's something.

2015 - Going Green

Completed our first LEED Platinum project. Started really digging into sustainable design and realized we couldn't not make this our thing. Brought on Elena Rodriguez who basically revolutionized how we think about materials.

2018 - Team Expansion

Moved to our current spot on King West with actual windows and everything. Grew to fifteen people. Started taking on bigger commercial projects and urban planning work with the city.

2021 - National Recognition

Won the Governor General's Medal for the Distillery District adaptive reuse project. Also survived a pandemic while working from home, which honestly felt like a bigger achievement at the time.

2024 - Today

Twenty-three talented people, three ongoing heritage restorations, and more sustainable projects than we can count. Still learning, still making mistakes, still trying to get it right.

What We're Good At

The stuff our team actually knows how to do

Heritage Restoration

We've worked on buildings from the 1850s to the 1970s. Each era's got its quirks - we know 'em all.

Sustainable Design

LEED, Passive House, net-zero - we don't just talk about it, we've actually built this stuff.

Urban Planning

How buildings fit into neighborhoods and cities. It's about context, not just the building itself.

Adaptive Reuse

Turning old factories into lofts, warehouses into offices - making old spaces work for new needs.

Recognition

Awards are nice, but honestly the best reward is when a client comes back for project number two

Governor General's Medal

Architecture (2021)

For the Distillery District Heritage Complex

OAA Design Excellence

Award (2019, 2022)

Recognized twice for sustainable residential projects

Heritage Toronto Award

Of Merit (2020)

King Street Heritage Restoration

Canada Green Building Council

Leadership Award (2023)

For advancing sustainable architecture in Ontario

Toronto Urban Design Award

Excellence (2018)

Queen West Mixed-Use Development

Heritage Building

How We Think About Architecture

Look, we're not gonna pretend we've got all the answers. Architecture's complicated because people are complicated, cities are complicated, and climate change isn't making anything easier.

What we do believe: buildings should last, they should use way less energy than they do now, and they should respect what came before while being honest about what they are. No fake historical details, no pretending concrete's wood - just good design that makes sense.

We've learned more from our mistakes than our successes. That warehouse conversion where we underestimated the HVAC challenges? Taught us to always, always bring in the mechanical engineer early. The residential project where the clients wanted "character" but we gave them "quirky"? Learned to listen better.

Every project's a chance to do better than last time. That's basically it. No manifesto, no grand theory - just trying to make good buildings that'll still be useful in fifty years.

See Our Work

Wanna Work Together?

Whether you've got a century-old building that needs love or you're planning something brand new, let's talk about it.

Get In Touch What We Do