Batay-Csorba Architects was founded by principals Andrew Batay-Csorba and Jodi Batay-Csorba. The practice was created in Los Angeles, California and moved to Toronto, Ontario in 2010. With our move we bring to Toronto over 15 years of work experience at internationally distinguished firms and an unmarked outlook to the progression of design.
Batay-Csorba Architects is a full-service licensed design firm with attention to design at all scales and project types. Our experience includes large scale urban planning, architectural design, interiors, construction management and project management, product design and fabrication, graphic visualization and multi-media design. We approach each project by questioning typical typologies and premeditated ideas in search for contemporary alternatives to how projects are approached, function and perform. Our work is fundamentally rooted in the exploration of core ideals and values that drive a thought driven process.
At the core of our work is the commitment to research and speculation. We engage simultaneously in the two seemingly distinct and confrontational realms of our profession; research and practice. This pursuit enables us to develop the expertise of our office and progress our work both technically and conceptually. In turn we are able to saturate our professional services with knowledge, expertise and progressive strategies tested outside of the scope of our client’s commissions. Our research explores the interfaces and forces between building organization, structure, circulation, materiality and environmental building systems in order to co-notate new formations of space and performance.
Andrew and Jodi have taught, lectured and critiqued locally and internationally at the 2012 Festival Abierto in Panama, the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, Cornell University in Ithica and New York, UCLA, USC, and Sci-Arc in Los Angeles, California.
We view technology as a tool that helps us facilitate and manage the architectural process. The use of technology does not justify the results. As such, we are cognizant that our work does not become a resultant of the platform we are using and leaves no recognizable digital ID. As a tool it enables us to expand the potentials of both speculative and performative design. Our philosophy integrates a collaborative process between the client, end users, consultants, contractor and fabricators to ensure goals and project needs are realized. Our use of BIM modeling and visualization software throughout the design process allows us to effectively develop and communicate a building’s functional, visual and construction aspects within the projects many requirements and constraints with the rest of the project team. Due to the small scale of the practice and principals careful selection of projects undertaken, principal involvement and attention is certain on all projects.
Our experience and overall knowledge of buildings bring value to each clients project by providing highly profitable and original design solutions, reducing overall costs, providing oversight of construction and quality control, increasing overall building efficiency, and streamlining the complicated design, management, permitting and construction process by acting as the single point of management on behalf of our clients best interests and welfare.
Since the practice’s inception in 2010, we have been commissioned to design a wide range of projects including the 3,600sf renovation and addition to the Glebe Residence in Ottawa, a 4,200sf renovation and addition to 2 converted 4 story multi-unit duplexes in Toronto, a 5 story 7 unit townhouse development, a schematic design proposal for a 3.5 million sf Mixed Use High-rise Tower in Liuzhou, China, a competition
proposal for a New Contemporary Art Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the winning submission in the Migrating Landscapes Competition for inclusion in the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. We have also completed a design-build live-work studio in Toronto where we acted as both Designer and Contractor. Our work has been exhibited at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy from August - November 2012, the Protean: Parametric Architecture Exhibition at the Maison De L’Architecture Du Quebec in Montreal from November 2012 - February 2013, the National Migrating Landscapes Exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery from March - April 2012, and the Regional Migrating Landscapes Exhibition at the Allen Lambert Galleria at Brookfield Place in Toronto from February - March 2012.
Both Andrew and Jodi graduated with Distinction and Advanced Placement from UCLA with Master of Architecture Degrees in 2005. At the age of 34 their own work has been widely published and awarded at both regional and national levels including LA Architect Magazine, Canadian Architect, the Toronto Star, Azure, Form Magazine, Thought Matters Publication, the Franklin D. Israel Design Fellowship, AIA LA 2x8 Award, first place in the AIA California 2x8 Award, and exhibited in the Armory Museum Exhibit in Pasadena California, the A+D museum in Los Angeles California, and numerous UCLA AUD Gallery Exhibitions.
For the past 15 years Andrew and Jodi have worked as Lead Project Designers, Project and Construction Managers, and Project Architects at distinguished Pritzker Prize winning design offices on urban scale projects in Dubai, Sydney and Los Angeles, to several of the most highly profiled museum institutions as well as small residential and interior oriented projects throughout the United States and Canada. Before founding Batay-Csorba Andrew was a Lead Project Designer, Project Manager and Director at Morphosis in Santa Monica, California for over 5 years where he lead over twenty projects such as the winning submission for the Orange County Museum of Art, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and proposals for the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), the National Jazz Center in New Orleans as well as several prominent urban design projects. Jodi’s background includes working with Morphosis, Gehry Partners, Aedas, Gensler and Predock Frane on awarded projects such as the Phare Tower in Paris, Hall Winery in Napa, Grand Avenue Development, Twin Houses, Habitat 15 Condominiums, and Club Nokia in Los Angeles, California. Andrew and Jodi’s work on both built and unbuilt projects at these aforementioned offices have been widely published in Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Architecture, GA Document, New York Times, LA Times, Fox News, Palisadian Post, Form, ID, LA Architect, numerous Rizzoli books and many others. The work has also been awarded with numerous AIA/LA Design Awards, AIA/MI Design Awards, AIA LA Citation and Merit Awards, a 2010 Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award, and many others.