Future Simple Studio is honoured to receive the Popular Choice award for Best Young Firm at the 13th annual International Architizer A+Awards. A female-led studio run by founder Christine Djerrahian and partner Ernst van ter Beek, Future Simple Studio was built on the principle that architecture is a collaborative exercise that has the power to positively contribute to our environments, communities, and lives.

With a small, tight-knit group of talents from non-traditional backgrounds, the studio accepts a limited number of projects to ensure that each one can benefit fully from the collective creative output of the team. The studio is committed to creating impactful projects that reflect today’s diverse perspectives and contribute to a conscious social and environmental transformation.

Even as timelines and budgets tighten while projects grow in complexity, Future Simple Studio remains grounded in its ethos: to cultivate a design practice that prioritizes and enhances the human experience. With a deep belief in human-centered design, they approach each project as an opportunity to shape how people feel, move, and connect within a space. From a coffee shop that promotes interaction amongst strangers, to wayfinding for the National Monument that uses design to inform and educate, their focus is on timelessness and long-term impact over short-term gains. They seek projects that create lasting change in their communities. Whether through a floor plan for a building, a public art installation, or a digital platform, their mission is to create environments that foster connection, community, and a sense of belonging.

Collaborative exercise

The team at Future Simple Studio intentionally creates a positive approach to architecture and design by emphasizing teamwork and collaboration. They listen to their clients and team members and invite comments and remarks that improve their designs, aware that creativity should be collaborative and not competitive. Each project begins with open dialogue and shared purpose, fostering a sense of collective ownership from the outset. Through brainstorming, open communication, and thoughtful exchange, they ensure that every voice has space and impact within the creative process.

Diverse perspectives

Their core philosophy being that creativity is at its best with different voices at the table, their small group of talents have interesting and varied backgrounds. Coming from architecture, industrial design, interior design, visual arts, graphics, mathematics, and business, every member of their team is dedicated to making timeless designs, lasting relationships, and thoughtful solutions. This diversity of perspectives allows them to approach each project with openness, curiosity, and a wide range of lenses, leading to richer, more nuanced outcomes.

Wide range of scales

Future Simple Studio has worked on projects spanning graphics and branding, architecture, interiors and design, and creative direction and strategy, both locally and internationally. Their portfolio includes arts initiatives and engagement platforms in Toronto, the groundbreaking of the 2SLGBTQI+ National Monument in Ottawa, a Japanese sushi restaurant in Quebec City, a loft in Tribeca, the interior of a new coffee and roastery in Montreal, and many more.

What unites all of their work - regardless of scale, type, or location - is a considered exploration of form, texture, and colour that evokes visceral joy and a sense of comfort. At the heart of each project is a commitment to designing spaces that not only look beautiful, but feel meaningful, intentional, and deeply human.