This November, Studio JCI marks twenty years of practice. Looking back, the thread running through two decades of work is conversation: with the city builders who bring us their projects, the municipalities we work with, and the communities who live in our buildings. Here is how that thread took shape.
Learning the market
For our first decade, we worked mostly on small domestic projects. Single detached homes, mostly. Work for city builders, where the mandate was simple: build efficiently, build well.
Those projects taught us something important. We started asking: can we bring real design thinking to the housing city builders actually build? Everyday housing. The kind of work that shapes how most people live.
We were learning the market from the ground up. Learning what city builders needed. Learning what actually works. And we kept asking: how do we add value here?
At that stage, we were focused on solving our clients' problems. The hard questions of our own were still ahead of us.
Learning to listen
Then something shifted.
With Shobuj Pata, we started listening differently. We focused on what the project was really trying to solve. That taught us something fundamental: if you listen deeply to what a community needs, you can design a building that actually serves it.
In 2019, we won the OAA SHIFT Award for Multi-Tach. That recognition mattered because it said we were thinking about how to evolve housing, and how to make it work at different scales. That's when we came to see ourselves as problem solvers.
Then policy opened up. Plex projects went from illegal to possible. And we thought: this is the gap we need to fill. Small-scale housing that is hard to make pencil for most city builders, and housing our cities need.
So we started listening in a different way.
We listened in Listowel. What did a small municipality need? What did seniors actually need? That conversation never stopped. It shaped Riverview. It still shapes it.
With missing-middle projects and plex work, city builders kept asking: "How do we make this work?" So we listened. We learned. We took on 9 Benlamond ourselves to understand it first-hand.
Staying in conversation
The pattern became clear: the feedback loop, staying in conversation, is what creates real value. Conversation from the first meeting through to the finished building.
A city builder comes to us thinking: "Square tower, maximum units." We ask: "What are you actually trying to do?" Sometimes they leave thinking: "Slab tower, better units, better economics." Or: "Maybe rental makes more sense than condo."
We can guide them because we've had these conversations with dozens of others. We listen more than we talk.
Thank you
To the city builders we work with: thank you. You asked us the hard questions. You pushed us to understand your world. That made us better.
To the past collaborators who built Studio JCI over the years: you shaped what we became. You brought your expertise, your care, your belief that architecture could be more. You're part of these twenty years, and this milestone is as much yours as ours.
To the municipalities we've worked with: thank you for trusting us, and for letting us stay in conversation beyond the ribbon-cutting.
To the residents and communities in our buildings: you're the reason we keep asking the question. You show us what actually works.
To our founders, who believed from day one that architects could do more than draw, and who built the culture that made all of this possible.
To our current team, an international and diverse group of people: you're why we can walk into a room with a city builder and say, "Let's figure this out together." You bring that partnership mentality to everything. You make this work real every day, and you're the ones carrying it forward. Thank you.
And to everyone who has been part of this journey, in the office and on the job sites: you're part of this too.
The next twenty
Twenty years in, we've grown into problem-solving partners. We listen. We learn. We help people think differently about what's possible.
The housing market is harder now than it was when we started. City builders tell us Ontario hasn't been tougher in years. That's exactly why this work matters. City builders need partners who listen, who've walked through the problems, and who can help them think.
That's what the next twenty looks like: staying in conversation, and helping solve the hard problems together.
Thank you for being part of this journey. For asking the questions that shaped us. For trusting us with your projects, your communities, your vision.
Here's to listening. To conversation. To buildings that serve the people in them.
Let's build something meaningful together.
Celebrating together
On September 23, we marked the milestone at Cosentino City with our team, clients, consultants and collaborators, former colleagues, and friends from across Toronto's development and design community. Our principals, Jaegap Chung, Sue Jean Chung, and Sudipto Sengupta, raised a toast to the people in the room and the work we've built together.
Our thanks to Cosentino City for hosting us, to Pure Catering for the food, and to Barecular for keeping the evening going.
Photos by Aaron Li.