Viktors Jaunkalns
Founder MJMA | OAA ARCHITECT AIBC AAA NSAA Int'l. Assoc. AIA UIA SCUP FRAIC
Viktor has devoted his professional career to elevating the everyday experience of the public realm for all, while making architecture that strengthens the health and wellness of individuals and the environment. He has led many of the innovations MJMA has contributed to community architecture typologies: the programming of in-between spaces to give each building a ‘social heart’ that increases community cohesion; attention to the humanization of large spaces like arenas, pools, and gymnasiums by means of scale, materiality, and daylighting; and the evolution of planning strategies that connect interior and exterior and that make our projects significant actors in their civic contexts.
Vik serves on numerous advisory boards and participates regularly at conferences, including those for Parks & Recreation Ontario and the biannual congress in Cologne for IAKS, the International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities/Internationaler Arbeitskreis Sportstättenbau, where MJMA’s work has been awarded multiple prizes sponsored by the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees. Vik has sat on the City of Toronto’s Urban Design Review Panel, a board that advises on all development within the city. He is a member of the International Union of Architects Sports and Leisure Group, comprised of architects from every continent and dedicated to exploring innovations in athletics and recreation architecture.
Vik graduated from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in 1981, after which he was awarded the Ontario Association of Architects Scholarship to conduct independent research in Switzerland and Italy. He has taught at the University of Waterloo's Rome Program and Carleton University's Foreign Study Program and has been a lecturer at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, and Toronto Metropolitan University as well as a design critic at McGill University, the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and the Hillier College of Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dedicated to athletics both professionally and personally, Vik is an avid snowboarder who loves to teach and race.
