DesignTO Tours: Inside Trinity Bellwoods

DesignTO is a registered charitable arts organization that believes design can create a sustainable, just, and joyful world. From January 23 – February 1, 2026, the DesignTO Festival features 100+ free events across Toronto, showcasing hundreds of artists and designers. Known as Canada’s largest annual design festival, DesignTO has welcomed over 1 million attendees, reached 2.6 billion people through media, supported 7+ creatives, and generated $120 million in tourism impact.“DesignTO isn’t just a festival; it’s an anti-loneliness machine,” co-founder Christina Zeidler remarked, underscoring the organization’s power to foster belonging and spark vital conversations about design’s role in shaping a better world.

DesignTO

Discover three projects in Trinity Bellwoods that invite guests to eat and drink in bright, playful and welcoming environments.

La Palma

Discover three hospitality interiors in the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood that invite guests to eat and drink in bright, playful and welcoming environments. On this walking tour, hear from Jodi and Andrew Batay-Csorba (founders of Batay-Csorba Architects) about their design of Milky’s Coffee, Rachelle Leblanc (founder of design/build agency Company Company) on Hamers Coffee, and interior designer Alexandra Hutchison (founder of Studio Marlowe) on La Palma restaurant and Casa La Palma lounge.The walking tour will meet at La Palma and split into groups to tour the three projects. Following the tour, participants have the opportunity to meet back at La Palma’s second floor lounge Casa for drinks and socializing.A certificate for 1 hour of OAA ConEd will be issued to attendees who request it and attend the event.This tour is organized by DesignTO and supported by the Trinity Bellwoods BIA.

In 2010, Batay-Csorba Architects partners Jodi and Andrew brought their vast international experience back home to Canada, where they have since developed a defined architectural response to the region’s unique design tradition. Jodi and Andrew have designed, directed, and managed over 96 internationally celebrated projects in 38 cities and 11 countries, both on their own and at Pritzker Prize-winning offices before founding Batay-Csorba Architects (B-CA). Whether a custom home, a retail fit out, ballet school, museum or a midrise, B-CA projects all start with a context-driven design process that creates a paradoxical balance between blending in and standing out. Their work seeks to be contextually responsive yet evolve into something altogether new. It rethinks standard typologies in search for improved alternatives. It reignites a relationship with local traditions of materiality. And while celebrating the past, it advances the future into something new.<a href="https://www.batay-csorba.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">batay-csorba.com</a>

Company Company is a design and fabrication agency founded by Rachelle LeBlanc in 2019. They specialize in creative and resourceful approaches to interior, furniture and object design. Their multidisciplinary team is hands-on and engages in all aspects of each project. They see the project throughout the ideation, design, fabrication, planning and execution stages. Company Company believes their approach leads to better outcomes, brings greater value to each client and ensures projects stay on budget and on time. Many of their clients and partners are rooted in the independent/local business, design and fabrication communities, and they actively advocate for the preservation of spaces and resources that help to support their needs.<a href="https://www.companycompanyprojects.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">companycompanyprojects.com</a>

Alexandra Hutchison began her career working in design television, spending time both in front of and behind the camera. Following several years of residential practice, she transitioned into commercial design with the acquisition of her Master of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in New York City, which culminated in her thesis entitled ‘Sustainability is Luxury: Luxury is Sustainability’. While working with BKSK Architects in Manhattan, Alexandra's portfolio diversified to include institutional, multi-unit residential, and projects for non-profit organizations, including the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn and the Lambaye Learning Center in Dakar, Senegal. Upon returning to Toronto in 2018, she launched Studio Marlowe, an interiors firm focused on hospitality and retail projects. Alexandra is currently a Professor of Interior Design in Georgian College’s Honours Bachelor of Interior Design program. She taught at Sheridan College previous to that. Recently, Alexandra joined Michael Donaldson at Design Workshop Architects as Interior Design Consultant. Alexandra's passion for environmental conservation and the natural world informs her work as a designer and much of her free time spent outside the studio. She has been a member of the Friends of Jane Committee at the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada for the past 10 years as a volunteer fundraiser and event planner.<a href="http://studiomarlowe.ca/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">studiomarlowe.ca</a>

Banner image: Casa La Palma designed by Alexandra Hutchison

Milky’s Coffee designed by Batay-Csorba Architects

Hamers Coffee designed by Company Company

La Palma designed by Alexandra Hutchison

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DesignTO Tours: Inside Trinity Bellwoods

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