By Elia Essen
Portrait Photography by Natasha Gerschon
Rendering by JORG
Grooming by Kristin Innocent
Studio Munge’s holiday party this year looked a little bit different than most companies’ December festivities. Instead of cocktails after work or a stuffy dinner, the Toronto-based design firm’s team boarded a plane for Halifax to experience Muir, a luxurious waterfront hotel infused with local marine charm, designed by the studio a few years ago. “We wanted our team to not only experience something radically different than here locally, but also discover and explore our own hotel,” says the studio’s dynamic leader Alessandro Munge. “They came out, not only with their bellies filled from the dinner, but with inspired hearts.”
While it may seem unorthodox, this team getaway says a lot about how Munge approaches his practice as a whole. He invests in a small but mighty team that prioritizes creativity—a creativity that he is willing to go the extra mile to feed—and views design as an emotive experience that tells a story.
It also speaks to the boundless inspiration he sources from his travels. After all, it was travelling the world and observing firsthand the diversity of cultures that laid the foundations for one of Studio Munge’s key pillars of success: that each project must be unique. “I really fell in love with the concept of the human spirit,” Munge says.
“You fall in love with the idea of being so global rather than local, and you start to infuse this in your work.”
Since its founding in 1997, Studio Munge has reached nearly dizzying heights, designing for some of the world’s most notable hotel and restaurant groups, with projects including Nobu Toronto, the Ritz-Carlton Residences South Beach Miami, several Pendry hotels, and Wolfgang Puck and Alain Ducasse restaurants. The studio has racked up a slew of awards along the way for innovative and opulent designs, and Munge will speak at the Living Luxe Design Show this April.
Recently Studio Munge has been applying its expertise on a more global scale, taking on more projects in the Caribbean and Middle East and opening an office in Miami last year. “But it wasn’t to make our studio bigger,” Munge says. “It was actually just to continue to refine the studio. We weren’t interested in quantity. We were more interested in quality.”
The latter bit is a point Munge emphasizes repeatedly. For him, it’s about the fun of creating spaces that push beyond the bounds of what has already been done in the world of design—take on too many projects and that simply can’t be done. “We have a philosophy in our company, which states that if Alessandro can’t touch the project, we don’t take on the project,” he says. Because of that, they are highly selective about what they choose to work on, saying yes only to clients who align with the objectives of the studio and are interested in collaborating on something exceptional.
They found one such client close to home with Toronto’s 138 Yorkville project, a daring and design-forward residential tower at the corner of Avenue Road and Yorkville Avenue. Once complete, the property will bring a new level of luxury to Toronto’s downtown core and offer a more centrally located alternative to such neighbourhoods as Forest Hill, Rosedale and the Bridle Path.
Here, beneath soaring ceilings and the soft glow of recessed lighting, the project’s grand lobby is a contemporary haven from the bustle of Yorkville, with Vaniglia Bianco marble-clad walls and floors, a sculptural cliff-stacked onyx concierge desk and striking bronze slats that reach high overhead. The elegant and opulent welcome extends throughout the buildings’ 31 storeys, with every corner carefully considered and imagined as a work of art.
From a third-floor lounge with a cocktail bar to a lush outdoor terrace complete with a reflecting pond, the amenities far exceed expectations. Adorned with curving limestone, the pool area, with its integrated waterfall and large linear fireplace, would be at home in a five-star hotel. A bright and modern fitness centre with an outdoor yoga terrace overlooks the Yorkville-Avenue Road neighbourhood, while parquet flooring, integrated wine cabinets and marble accents make the private dining room a stately and memorable locale for residents to host a dinner.
For the residences themselves, Studio Munge designed three options, each more stunning than the last, based on three fictitious characters they imagined living there. The contemporary option, informed by an art curator’s aesthetic, is all serene sophistication, with neutral tones, light oak cabinetry and clean sweeping lines, while the traditional one takes its cues from bold European design with textured leather and lacquered wood-panelled walls, herringbone floors and a bookmatched marble fireplace. The transitional offering falls somewhere in between, blending modern spirit with traditional elements.
The 138 Yorkville Presentation Gallery on Yorkville Avenue offers a taste of what can be expected from the completed tower. Designed to mimic the flow and feel of the residences, the gallery is adorned with many of the same materials, including Vaniglia Bianco marble, onyx, bronze and opaline glass fin chandeliers. Contemporary furnishings from brands including Holly Hunt Design, StudioTwentySeven and Artifort form homey vignettes that welcome visitors to imagine themselves living within the design genius of Studio Munge. It’s bite-sized foreshadowing of all that’s to come at the completed 138 Yorkville, a trailblazing project that Munge is particularly excited about.
“We were able to take this massive amount of experience that we have and bottle it up into this little project, which is 138 Yorkville. I’m so happy to see that architectural open-mindedness—that the client was taking design risks,” Munge says.
“That’s a striking project—there is simply nothing like it. I haven’t seen a project like that in all of Canada and beyond.”
As the studio nears its third decade, Munge’s interests go beyond picking a wall colour or a piece of furniture. Munge is most drawn to projects that have the ability to change the very fabric of a community. He describes 138 Yorkville as one of those projects. “We understand there’s a certain clientele that are going to be able to afford it. I get all that, but I’m talking about making a change to our city positively,” he explains. “And that’s just one project I, with all my heart, believe is going to do that. It’s very, very rare that a developer has the vision and bravery to put up a project like that.”
Another is the Muir hotel, which Munge says has elevated the standard of design for all of downtown Halifax and has increased room rates across the board. “We fundamentally changed, through design, the entire little city of Halifax. And I think that’s very powerful. You won’t understand that when we take a picture of Muir,” Munge says. “You’ll never be able to hear that story, but when you start to talk to your clients and you see how it impacted a city, to me, that is way more satisfying than
just a trophy.”
And while some creatives who have reached their stride may be wary of straying too far from the path, Studio Munge exists in a constant state of evolution. Beyond numerous recently completed projects, among them, Mijo, a delightfully subdued Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, inspired by the agave plant, and EDITION Residences Miami, a bright and modern condo tower overlooking Biscayne Bay, Munge and his team are poised to announce several monumental collections and exclusive collaborations later this year with the likes of the Aman Group.
Guided by Munge’s infectious curiosity and passion, which he practically thrums with, the team’s eagerness to explore, redefine and refine, backed by the ability to follow through with exceptional quality, is exactly what has driven Studio Munge to reach such stratospheric heights. And they’re not coming down any time soon. “I actually feel like we’re just getting started in our business,” Munge says. “I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface at all.”