Since 1999, Johnson Chou Inc. has developed into a multi-disciplinary design practice encompassing architectural and industrial design, furniture and interiors, graphic identity and corporate communications – a body of work characterized by conceptual explorations of narrative, transformation and multiplicity.

While the search for the elemental is the defining aspect of the diverse, yet consistent body of work, elements of drama and engagement (often in an interactive sense), exemplify the firm’s projects.  Functioning on several conceptual levels, their work is further characterized by a methodology based on the creation of a narrative amplified by notions of transformation and multi-functionality as it pertains to objects and space; the articulation of the complex within the elemental both in form and function; and of their paradoxical relationship.

Completed projects include The Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MoCCA), Blowfish Restaurant, offices for advertising agency Grip Limited, the TNT boutiques in Hazelton Lanes and Eglinton Avenue, Red Bull Canada Headquarters and Music Academy and the Bang & Olufsen Yorkville showroom.

Projects have been featured in numerous architectural/design publications and in the popular press, both nationally and internationally. These include Architectural Record, Architectural Review, FRAME, Interior Design, I.D, Metropolis, Azure, Canadian Interiors and Canadian Architect magazines.

Recognition of the firms’ work include Canadian Interior’s Magazine Best of Canada Award 2006 for advertising agency Grip Limited Phase 1, 2005 for 11 Baldwin and Grafic, a menwear boutique; 2004 for both Blowfish Restaurant + Sake Bar and Grip Limited; 2002 for TNT Woman; the Ontario Association of Architecture Awards 2002, and Toronto’s Interior Design Show’s Gold Award for Outstanding Booth Design in 2001 and 2004.  In 2006, the new office for Grip Limited also received Interior Design Magazine’s “Best of Year” (BOY) Award and in 2007 the residence 10 Bellair was a finalist for the same award.

The firm’s work was also recently been selected for inclusion in several compendium publications including 1000x Architecture of the Americas (publisher Braun), Contemporary World Interiors (Susan Yelavich, publisher Phaidon) and Interior Architecture Now (Jennifer Hudson, publisher Laurence King) for “a survey of sixty of the top individuals/practices (the established, provocative and rising stars) designing interior spaces today”.