Canada’s Next Top Architect

by Danny Sinopoli
Globe and Mail, Jan 15, 2016

(Image: Gandhi designed the Float house in Halifax to echo its rocky environment while taking advantage of airy views across Purcell’s Cove. Courtesy of Globe and Mail, photo by Omar Gandhi & Jeff Shaw)

For a budding starchitect, Omar Gandhi seems refreshingly devoid of ego. Or maybe he’s just pragmatic.

If the Ontario-born, Halifax-based designer flops, “I can always go back to Brampton and work in trucking like I did when I was a kid,” he jokes from Nova Scotia, where he has been living on and off since receiving his master’s degree at Dalhousie University in 2005.

Considering that, in 2014 alone, Gandhi nabbed both the Canada Council’s $50,000 Prix de Rome and a spot on Wallpaper magazine’s list of the world’s top 20 young architects, his Plan B likely won’t be necessary. In fact, Gandhi will be returning to Ontario this week – as a featured speaker, along with B.C.’s Omer Arbel, at the Interior Design Show in Toronto. Not long after, he’ll be back to open a satellite office in the city. Not bad for a 36-year-old whose projects to date have largely been private homes. Read more…