If you want the shortlist of Toronto designers to watch right now, start with StudioAC, Reflect Architecture, and Stacklab, then add the three studios that took emerging honours at the 2026 AZ Awards: AAmp Studio, By Lemoignan, and Smallmediumlarge. Toronto’s design story is usually told through its giants. This one is about the next generation.
Everyone here has built a real body of work, and every fact below is verified: founders, years, and projects. The established firms get their due in our guide to the best interior designers in Toronto. This page is for the names your architect friend mentions before the magazines catch up.
At a glance
- StudioAC and Reflect Architecture lead the emerging architecture and interiors pack.
- The AZ Awards 2026 named AAmp Studio, By Lemoignan, and Smallmediumlarge as emerging winners.
- Toronto’s makers (Coolican & Company, hollis+morris, Stacklab) are exporting the city’s craft worldwide.
Which emerging Toronto architecture and interiors studios are next?
Three studios stand out: StudioAC for disciplined minimalism, Reflect Architecture for high-profile residential work, and Montana Burnett Design for rooms with editorial polish. All three are young enough to still feel like discoveries, and established enough that the work holds up.
StudioAC
Founded in 2015 by Jennifer Kudlats and Andrew Hill, StudioAC works across architecture and interiors with a restraint that has become its signature. Everden House shows the residential side: clean geometry, careful light, nothing wasted. The Annex Hotel shows the studio can carry that same discipline into hospitality, where most minimalism falls apart under daily wear. A decade in, the portfolio is remarkably consistent. Why watch: StudioAC is the clearest candidate to become Toronto’s next internationally recognized architecture practice.
Reflect Architecture
Trevor Wallace’s studio works across architecture and interiors, and it landed one of the city’s most talked-about residential projects: a Toronto penthouse for Noah Shebib, covered by Dezeen in 2025. The firm also designed Lumea at The Well, putting its name on one of downtown’s biggest mixed-use addresses. That range, from a single private home to a marquee development, is rare for a practice this size. Why watch: when Dezeen covers your residential work, the international commissions tend to follow.
Montana Burnett Design
Montana Burnett came up through House & Home before launching her own residential and commercial practice, and the editorial training shows. Her rooms have the layered, eclectic quality that design publications gravitate toward: pattern, colour, and vintage pieces mixed with confidence rather than caution. It is a counterpoint to the white-walled minimalism that dominates the city’s emerging tier. Why watch: she designs the kind of interiors that get published, and publication is how young Toronto firms break out.
Who are Toronto’s emerging brand and graphic designers?
The name to know is Public Address, the studio founded by two alumni of Bruce Mau Design, the Toronto firm that shaped a generation of Canadian graphic designers. The city’s brand scene is deep, but this is the young studio with the strongest pedigree.
Public Address
Christa Muio and Chris Braden both worked at Bruce Mau Design before founding Public Address, and that lineage matters: Bruce Mau’s studio defined big-idea Canadian design thinking for decades. Public Address is a brand studio in the full sense, building identities rather than one-off campaigns, with the strategic rigour you would expect from its founders’ training. The practice is still early, which is exactly the point of this list. Why watch: ex-Bruce Mau designers starting their own shop is how Toronto’s best studios have historically begun.
Who won the AZ Awards 2026 emerging designer honours?
Three studios took emerging honours at the 2026 AZ Awards, the international program run from Toronto by Azure magazine: AAmp Studio, By Lemoignan, and Smallmediumlarge. An AZ emerging win is one of the most reliable early signals in Canadian design.
- AAmp Studio: named among the emerging winners at the AZ Awards 2026.
- By Lemoignan: recognized in the same emerging cohort by the 2026 AZ Awards jury.
- Smallmediumlarge: rounds out the AZ Awards 2026 emerging winners list.
Keep all three names filed. Past AZ emerging winners have a habit of showing up on magazine covers within a few years.
Which Toronto furniture and object makers should you know?
Three workshops define the emerging maker scene: Coolican & Company and hollis+morris, both founded in 2014, and Stacklab, founded in 2013. Between them they cover solid-wood furniture, lighting, and collectible design that has reached Design Miami and TEFAF.
Coolican & Company
Peter Coolican founded his workshop in 2014 to make small-batch solid-wood furniture, and the operation has stayed deliberately small ever since. The pieces are built to the standard of things you pass down rather than replace: honest joinery, domestic hardwoods, forms that do not chase trends. In a market flooded with fast furniture, that patience reads as radical. Why watch: Coolican is quietly building the kind of heritage workshop Toronto has not had in a generation.
hollis+morris
Mischa Couvrette founded hollis+morris in 2014, and the studio’s distinguishing move is doing furniture and LED lighting under one roof. That dual fluency, wood craft on one side and lighting engineering on the other, gives the catalogue a coherence most young brands cannot match. The lighting in particular has become a calling card for Canadian design abroad. Why watch: lighting is where Canadian product design exports best, and hollis+morris is positioned exactly there.
Stacklab
Jeff Forrest founded Stacklab in 2013, and it has become Toronto’s most convincing answer to the collectible design world. Stackabl, the studio’s configurable felt-furniture platform, turns factory offcuts into made-to-order pieces, which makes it both a sustainability story and a systems-design one. The work has shown at Design Miami and TEFAF, fairs where Canadian studios rarely appear. Why watch: Stacklab is the Toronto name international collectors already know, and the gap between local and global recognition is closing fast.
How do you follow Toronto’s emerging design scene?
Three fixtures on the calendar do most of the work. DesignTO, the city’s design festival each January, is where emerging studios show experimental work first. The AZ Awards, run by Toronto’s Azure magazine, flag the next wave annually. And the ARIDO Awards gala on September 17 at Meridian Hall celebrates the province’s interior design talent. Our Toronto design events guide keeps the full calendar current.
The honest bottom line: Toronto’s emerging tier is deeper than it has been in years. Bookmark these names now, then say you knew them when.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the up-and-coming designers in Toronto?
The strongest emerging names are StudioAC and Reflect Architecture in architecture and interiors, Montana Burnett Design in residential design, Public Address in branding, and Coolican & Company, hollis+morris, and Stacklab among furniture makers. AAmp Studio, By Lemoignan, and Smallmediumlarge joined the list as AZ Awards 2026 emerging winners.
Who won the AZ Awards 2026 emerging designer honours?
The 2026 AZ Awards, the international design program run by Toronto-based Azure magazine, named three emerging winners: AAmp Studio, By Lemoignan, and Smallmediumlarge. The emerging categories have a strong track record of identifying studios that go on to national and international recognition within a few years.
What design awards and events happen in Toronto?
Toronto’s design calendar centres on three events: DesignTO, the city-wide design festival held each January; the AZ Awards, Azure magazine’s international awards program based in Toronto; and the ARIDO Awards, Ontario’s interior design honours, with a gala on September 17, 2026 at Meridian Hall.
