About Us

• Victor Monsivais

B. Arch.

Principal

Mr. Victor Monsivais, founder and principal of the Environmental Design Centre, has over thirty years’ experience in the fields of architecture and urban design. He was part of the team in charge of the project for the Centro Cultural Mexiquense , which was awarded first place for built works by the International Architectural Biennale in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His work has been published in several books and magazines.

He was a project architect and design associate with Grupo de Diseño Urbano GGDU) in Mexico City. Victor was instrumental to the design and construction of the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Popular Culture in Toluca, Mexico, and the master plan for Centro Médico Siglo XXI, the major hospital complex in Mexico.

As a senior design associate with Abraham Zabludovsky Architects in Mexico City, Victor was involved in several projects including a university campus, a convention centre and the National Library of Mexico. These works were published by Princeton University Press in the book Abraham Zabludovsky Architect 1979–1993.

He was a project manager/designer with Page + Steele Architects in Toronto for the Famous Players cinemas in Laval, Quebec, a retrofit of an office building into residential lofts in Toronto and an apartment building in Cuba. He was a design associate at the Kirkland Partnership Architects, Toronto, and was part of the design team for the Customs House Office Building in Tianjin, China, the Toronto Waterfront Master Plan and the master plan for the New City of Quin-Pu near Shanghai, China.

In his own practice, Mr. Monsivais has undertaken a wide variety of architectural and urban design commissions, including residential developments, mixed-use facilities, tourist resorts, restaurants, cinemas, hotels and private houses. Since his first commissions in the early eighties, Victor was already using roof gardens, exterior solar window protective devices and comprehensive site planning. He was the designer in chief for Eco-villa: a zero-emissions tourist facility in Baja California, Mexico. He designed a passive baseboard heater humidifier and a backyard wind turbine for electricity generation.

Victor has been an architectural design studio professor at the Universidad de Valle de Mexico in Mexico City and Ryerson University in Toronto. He has also been an interior design professor at the Art Institute of Toronto and an environmental design professor at the International Academy of Design and Technology, also in Toronto.

He was the team coordinator at GDU for the book Environmental Design Guidelines, commissioned by the Mexican Institute of Social Security. Currently, Victor is writing a book on environmental design.

• Eduardo Monsivais

Civil Engineer

• Andrea Monsivais

Architect