Canadian architect Omar Gandhi chases joy through design

Omar Gandhi treats happiness as a serious design objective. The Canadian architect has built a celebrated practice across Halifax, Toronto, and Berlin, defining his work not by a signature style but by a care for construction and material sourcing. Architizer’s executive editor, Hannah Feniak, recently spoke with Gandhi about the studio’s approach, which is driven by a sense of adventure and a spirit of explorative curiosity.

Chasing Joy in the Process

Over the past decade and a half, Gandhi has pursued pleasure in the design process, which ultimately breeds joy in the final product. He views happiness as an undervalued objective in architecture, arguing that it is essential to observe how spaces resonate with people. A key lesson came from Rabbit Snare Gorge, a project that makes people happy, perhaps in a childlike way or because it is not taking itself too seriously. The lesson was the value of being part of beautiful things that give people a moment of joy for no more serious reason than that.

To translate that feeling into work, the architect saves in his mind what brings joy in a space. He watches people playing and notes how the environment shapes their experience, such as the way natural light, acoustics, or materials are controlled. He banks these experiences and thinks, I need to bookmark that, because we should explore something down that road.

Light appears repeatedly in his work. Gandhi explains that storytelling has always been a big part of what the studio does. He wants people to feel something, whether they are at a symphony or watching a film, and uses light to push and pull and contort them. With light, it is not about flooding a space but shaping it so the viewer yearns for the warmth of natural light and then gets to feel it.

This same playfulness shows up in the furniture and hardware the studio designs. Gandhi feeds off people’s excitement and surrounds himself with those who push the idea that you can do everything. He can experiment—if he wants to think about furniture, hardware, or environment, he just does it. These are all the itches he is scratching. His own house was an opportunity to experiment more than a client would give him leeway on, because he was paying for it. He is easily convinced to do things if they are exciting, though he often does not think about whether he can actually afford it. That experimentation opened the door to doing it for other people, too.

A more public work, even a private restaurant like Prime Seafood Palace, is a place people can go to. The architect notes that when he goes in for dinner, the happiness of the people there is unbelievable. It is a beautiful restaurant for celebrating special things in people’s lives, and it is an addictive feeling to have that kind of influence and watch them enjoy it.

This feeling has led him into collaborative community work. His house was meant to have the studio on the lower floor, but work took off, and he could not downsize into it. It became his home studio and a place where he gets together with the community to work on North End projects. The most recent was a 100- to 150-year-old home that had been torn apart and dilapidated. He renovated it with the North End Community Health Centre and found donors, and it became the Blue House—a home for people who had been on the street.

Community and Collaboration

Success comes from giving people due credit. The most important outcome is the work itself. The final product is often more successful when a team works together.