If it’s not one thing, it’s another–or better yet, a bit of both. Aránzazu González Bernardo, who is from Spain, and Michael Fohring, a Canadian, met when they were both working at an architectural practice in Austria. The couple, who founded Toronto-based Odami in 2017, describe themselves as two very stubborn people with very different architectural educations. Fohring says his studies at McGill University were looser and more theory-driven, while Bernardo trained in a country that places considerable emphasis on construction viability and working with the existing urban fabric. “On any of our projects, there is a lot of head-butting, but we always find our way to a place where he’s happy and I’m happy,” Bernardo says.
Their interest in blending and blurring extends well beyond in-house cultural cross-fertilization. “We like to talk about helping a project emerge from all the conditions—the quirky characteristics of the client or the site, or the research that we do about its history,” says Fohring. “We’re trying to tease these elements out and allow them to emerge more naturally through these conditions, as opposed to coming in with our own set of ideas and our identity that we need to preserve on each project.”
Deer Park House illustrates their affinity for renovations and additions that are, as Fohring says, “a continuum rather than a hard break.” To expand and renew this century home in Toronto, Odami designed a third-floor addition that takes its massing cues from neighbouring residences. On the interior, they struck a balance between opening up spaces and preserving a suite of distinct rooms, each with its own character. This approach reduced construction waste, while ensuring that the changes read like the next chapter in the house’s history, rather than a completely different story. Large and clearly new, a fluted marble fireplace comfortably co-exists with retained elements such as a leaded-glass transom, still set in a previously exterior doorway that is now inboard.
Odami has now designed two stores for Australian luxury skincare and fragrance retailer Aesop: one in Toronto’s Yorkville district and one in Pacific Palisades, California. The California shop riffs on the lush greenness of its surroundings and the serene, nature-attuned architecture of the Kappe Residence, the Pacific Palisades home of SCI-Arch founder Ray Kappe. Aesop Yorkville draws inspiration from how that part of Toronto retained its Victorian architecture and intimate scale throughout the mid-century modern decades, when many heritage neighbourhoods were obliterated. While the store’s high, narrow dimensions and deep burgundy walls feel very Victorian, the most Odami thing about the project is its wainscoting.
After a typical amount of head-butting, Bernardo and Fohring agreed that conventional old-timey porch or stairway spindles, unconventionally spaced, could set up an intriguing interplay between the nostalgic and the unfamiliar. Happening upon a supplier who wanted to unload a quantity of spindles cut too short for current code requirements sealed the conceptual deal. “Almost like thrifting!” Bernardo says, beaming.
A word about the word Odami: it’s not a real word. Not wanting to name their practice after themselves, the partners combined some random sounds they liked and arrived at a not-yet-registered domain name. Whether they’re manipulating syllables or spindles, they rely on iteration and instinct to get to where they both want to be.
This profile is part of our October 2024 feature story, Twenty + Change: New Perspectives.
As appeared in the October 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine