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Studio VAARO

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Toronto, ON
Studio VAARO

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Studio VAARO, Architectural Designer, Toronto, ON.

Studio VAARO, founded by Aleris Rodgers and Francesco Valente-Gorjup, is a Toronto-based architecture practice that re-imagines conventional building typologies through investigations of spatial relationships, materials, and construction techniques.

03/25/2026

Following Viewing Rooms’ sculpture gallery, a second threshold (containing a washroom and kitchenette) guides movement into the photography gallery.

This final room, a perfect square, was designed to display photographs in an intimate setting. Rounded corners soften the room’s geometry, while a tall lightwell set flush with the far wall casts diffuse illumination that further dissolves the wall’s edges.

In Collaboration with our dear friend and fine art photographer

Visualization:

03/17/2026

Viewing Rooms’ interior opens with a compact threshold, where visitors pass between two thickened volumes housing storage before emerging into the expansive sculpture gallery.

The gallery’s ceiling is punctuated by two tall lightwells whose curved surfaces distribute soft, even illumination. The space supports flexibility for floor-, wall-, and ceiling-mounted works.

In Collaboration with our dear friend and fine art photographer

Visualization:

03/13/2026

Viewing Rooms’ brief, to design three interconnected spaces for landscape, sculpture, and photography, offered a strong framework for a spatial narrative grounded in perception and reflection.

First in the sequence, the landscape court is enclosed on all sides but open to the ground and sky. A circular void in the roof captures shifting light and weather.

A pivot door leads to a deep threshold, opening onto the sculpture gallery beyond.

03/09/2026

Viewing Rooms, Studio VAARO’s design for a small art gallery in rural Ontario, sits in a forest clearing.

Its dark, monolithic pigmented-concrete façade echoes the surrounding earth and bark tones. Three chimney-like lightwells rise among the trees, drawing diffuse daylight deep into the galleries. Below, five concave bands are carved into the base, recalling stone shaped by wind and water, or the imprint of fingers pressed into clay.

In Collaboration with our dear friend and fine art photographer

Visualization:

03/04/2026

For On the Courtyard, our design prioritizes high-quality interiors as a compelling, flexible alternative to the detached house: well-proportioned rooms across a range of household sizes, generous windows, strong thermal and acoustic performance, and a direct connection to the outdoors.

Our courtyard apartments are “through-units”: all primary rooms are naturally daylit and cross-ventilated, with views to both street and courtyard, unlike the deep, narrow units typical of much recent construction in Toronto.

The courtyard-block typology supports a range of apartment types, from studios to four-bedrooms, allowing residents to remain in the same block over a lifetime, moving between units as their circumstances evolve.

Read more in our research and design publication Impossible Toronto: On the Courtyard, a collaboration with , for — link in bio.

Visualizations:

02/27/2026

Dupont Housing - Located on a corner lot along a busy Toronto thoroughfare, this six-storey multi-unit residential building is defined by geometric clarity and bold colour. A mineral base of vertical, pigmented concrete panels establishes a resilient and tactile material presence at the pedestrian scale. Above, the upper levels are clad in pigmented corrugated metal, shingled at an oversized scale and carefully aligned with the Juliet balcony guards to create a unified façade language.

We conceived the envelope as a repeatable system, allowing the architectural expression to be deployed across a range of urban conditions while maintaining a strong and recognizable identity within the client’s growing portfolio of missing-middle residential buildings. This emphasis on modularity and replicability informed both the massing strategy and the planning logic, enabling adaptation to sites of varying scale and configuration.

At grade, the building engages the street through a flexible ground-floor space designed to accommodate either office or café use, contributing to the vitality and social life of the neighbourhood.

In Collaboration with:
For our friends:

01/31/2026

We are thrilled to start the year off with another win for Rathnelly House, this time in the Best in Design Awards from Azure and Designlines, in the Home Renovation category. Congratulations to all the other winners and finalists!

Photography:

01/27/2026

We’re excited to share that Rathnelly House has been nominated for the ArchDaily 2026 Building of the Year Awards in the Houses category. If you’d like to support the project, voting in this first stage of nominations is open until February 10th - link in bio. Thank you for your support!

Photography:

01/23/2026

Join us for a reception with the authors and panel discussion with Aleris Rodgers (Studio VAARO), Marc Ryan (Public Work), and former senior planner with the City of Toronto Graig Uens (Batory Urban Planning & Project Management), moderated by Elizabeth Pagliacolo, Editor-in-Chief of AZURE Magazine.

Monday, January 26 @ 7pm
TYPE Books, 883 Queen West

Space is limited — please DM us to RSVP!

Photography by:

courtyard

01/12/2026

Our design proposal for On the Courtyard builds on Studio VAARO’s interest in low-tech architecture—an approach that prioritizes traditional construction methods, fewer and more sustainable building materials, and passive strategies for heating, cooling, and ventilation.

The four- and six-storey buildings we developed for the project are ideally scaled to give every unit a balcony. These balconies connect each home to the central courtyard and the outdoors more broadly, while also performing a key environmental function: balconies, along with operable exterior blinds, provide summer shading. In parallel, the through-units typical of courtyard housing enable cross-ventilation, and a layer of concrete over the mass timber floor structure absorbs and re-radiates solar heat in winter. Together, these strategies show how thoughtful passive environmental strategies can improve comfort and quality of life in residential buildings.

Read more in our research and design publication Impossible Toronto: On the Courtyard, a collaboration with , for —link in bio.

Visualizations:

12/26/2025

Thank you again to AN’s 2025 Jury for recognizing us with two awards this year! A Best of Practice Honorable Mention in the Architect (New Firm) – Canada category and a Best of Design Honorable Mention in the Unbuilt – Cultural & Civic category. Exciting to see all the winners in print.

Address

Toronto, ON

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.studiovaaro.com/

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