them into multi-purpose community facilities. To date, MJD Architect has been fortunate enough to be awarded several of those contracts – currently, for example, they are doing one church transformation in Saint-Mathieu and another in Sainte-Sophie-de-Lévrard– and their goal is to do a lot more. “We love the challenge and the technical complexity of those projects,” Marie-Josée reiterates. “On those projects, we’re not just doing a restoration. We’re restoring the old and we’re adding on the new, and we’re making it all work together.” “We’re hoping to do a lot more of those transformations in the future,” she says. “And we’re hoping to do some bigger projects. The bigger they are the more challenging they are – and the more challenging they are, the better.” Lastly, in terms of the size of the firm, Marie-Josée believes they are about the right size now. Their team fluctuates slightly over the course of a year because they will hire students for the summer, but their ideal size is around 15 people, and ideally that will include a mixture of youth and experience. It’s important to her, she says, that they employ young architects and give them the opportunity to become associates. “We want to give young people the chance to become architects and associates and help move the firm forward into the future,” Marie-Josée concludes. “We want to make sure there are people coming up after us to continue the work we do.” JULY 2024
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