Canadian design excellence is getting its long-overdue recognition, with major talent breaking onto the global market. Why is Canada so hot right now? And how can designers build a vision for expanding their reach beyond their home turf? Join AZURE’s Executive Editor Elizabeth Pagliacolo for an engaging breakfast conversation with four vibrant Canadian firms to find out how they are erasing boundaries, working with global manufacturers and clients, and grabbing the international spotlight.

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Michael Sørensen (Denmark) joined Henning Larsen in 2006 and was appointed partner in 2016. His extensive international profile includes design direction of projects in Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the United
States and Canada, including the Etobicoke Civic Centre in Toronto. Michael is an expert in educational, civic, and commercial buildings and their landscapes, and has expertise in strategically creating open and inviting designs that
become attractive urban destinations and encourage interaction between civic officials and citizens.

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Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu are the founding partners of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, an interdisciplinary practice based in Shanghai with an office in London. They have won numerous international awards such as the Overall Winner of The PLAN Award (2018), EDIDA Designers of the Year (2017) and ICONIC Awards’ Interior Designers of the Year (2017). Before starting their own practice in 2004, they both worked for several architecture firms in the US. They strongly believe in research as a design tool, their work draws from the dynamic interaction between experience, detail, material, form and light. Neri&Hu have designed a number of industrial design products for various brands. Their projects are often defined as spatial experiences that blend new and existing built conditions using materials that create a sense of layering and screening while drawing inspiration from vernacular Asian design.

Having graduated at the Design Academy in Eindhoven in 2000, Marije set her mind on creating a new direction in the field of design. After having developed and recently sold two experimental restaurants called ‘PROEF’ in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, she broadened her experiments and developed her vision to design out of the verb of eating. Now she works solo again under her own name. After 18 years of experience she is considered a pioneer and the ‘Grand dame’ in the field of eating design (De Volkskrant). Vogelzang works on restaurant concepts as well as long-term medical projects for hospitals. She initiates social projects like workshops to educate and inspire but she also does some extensive workfor food industries. She designs art installations and curates exhibitions about eating and design. Sheis head of the bachelor department ‘MAN AND FOOD’ at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her work has been published and acknowledged globally. In 2015, Marije was part of Fast Company’s top 100 most creative people in business and a finalist of the World Technology awards in the Design section. In 2016 she was on the GOOD100 list of Good Magazine. In 2016 Marije initiated the Dutch institute of Food and Design, a global network to celebrate the connection between food and design.

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