The Grand Challengers Podcast Episode #64

When Architecture Misbehaves, from Spreadsheets in the Sky to Digital Tombs

Guest: Alexander Josephson

June 9th, 2026

Overview

“Why is our architecture not as diverse as our culture is progressive?” That’s the question Toronto-based architect Alexander Josephson keeps asking. On this episode, he doesn’t pull punches. Alex is the founder and creative director of PARTISANS, the studio behind the Grotto Sauna, the masterplan to resurrect Toronto’s gargantuan Hearn power plant into a cultural district, and The Orbit, a radial reinvention of the Garden City for a transit-oriented future. He’s also founder and CEO of Cumulus, an immersive digital memorialisation platform born from his father’s brush with death during COVID.

Across two decades of practice, Alex has staked out a position that’s part critique, part call to arms: that the condo towers crashing into Toronto’s skyline are “spreadsheets in the sky”, that greenwashed sustainability mandates have made architects pawns of capital, and that buildings should be designed to be “thousand-year worthy”. In this conversation we trace Alex’s nonlinear journey from a rebellious Canadian kid into the world of architecture (the University of Waterloo, Rome with Massimiliano Fuksas, the AA in London which he dropped out of), the founding of PARTISANS in a Toronto storage locker, his Jewish master’s thesis that radically redesigned Mecca around a singularity, the Grotto Sauna’s pre-fabricated arrival by barge, the wild story of an 8-metre disco ball that helped ignite the Hearn’s cultural revival, and what it actually takes to design a “complete community” against the headwinds of Canada’s worst real estate downturn in a century.

We also wrestle with the disruptive force of AI in design (as Alex puts it, “it’s just a tool, like a pencil”), the case for interfaith architecture as a path to peace, and how personal grief gave rise to Cumulus, his “digital tomb” for the family memories trapped on our devices. A spirited, irreverent and sometimes uncomfortable episode for anyone who builds, designs, or simply lives among buildings.

Episode Teaser

A preview of Episode 64 with Alexander Josephson, Toronto-based architect, founder of PARTISANS and CEO of Cumulus. From “spreadsheets in the sky” to the Hearn power plant, from a radical redesign of Mecca to a digital tomb born of personal grief, Alex makes the case that beauty emerges when design misbehaves.

Biography

“…Architecture is a manifestation of your values…”

Alexander Josephson is the founder and creative director of PARTISANS, an award-winning Toronto-based architecture and design studio he co-founded in 2012. A native of Toronto, Alex studied architecture at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, including extended study periods in Rome, and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, which he famously left to start the studio. Prior to launching PARTISANS, Alex worked in the Rome studio of Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas. He also won the New York Prize Fellowship at the Van Alen Institute, the only Canadian to ever have received it. Known for his rigorous commitment to the studio’s design vision and his ingenuity in finding high-impact creative solutions to complex problems, Alex has led PARTISANS’ work on projects including the Grotto Sauna on Lake Huron, Bar Raval, the Fold House, Gusto 501, the cultural revival of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station for Luminato Festival 2016, the ongoing Hearn District masterplan, and The Orbit transit-oriented master plan for the town of Innisfil. He was named Best Emerging Designer by Canada’s Design Exchange in 2015 and is a recipient of the Globe & Mail’s Catalyst Award for Design.

Alex is also founder and CEO of Cumulus, an immersive digital memorialisation platform that allows users to preserve memories, grieve loved ones and celebrate lives lived through a navigable cloud of photos, videos, audio files, documents and weblinks (accessible on desktop, mobile and in virtual reality). Cumulus emerged from Alex’s experience of nearly losing his father to COVID-19 complications and is now partnered with some of North America’s largest cemetery and funeral home networks. In addition to his work at PARTISANS and Cumulus, Alex is a lecturer and core faculty member at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, a registered architect with the Ontario Association of Architects, a guest contributor to Azure Magazine, and a frequent writer and speaker on the future of architecture, design and cities internationally.

Alexander Josephson, Toronto-based architect, founder and creative director of PARTISANS, and founder and CEO of Cumulus digital memorialisation platform

Quick Summary & Highlights

  • “Spreadsheets in the sky”: why Toronto’s condo boom produced monotonous, low-quality towers that are now financially and physically obsolete, and what every fast-growing city should learn from it
  • Architecture as activism: the founding doctrine of PARTISANS and the case for architecture as a political and social force, not a service trade
  • The Orbit: PARTISANS’ radial, transit-oriented reinvention of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City for Innisfil, Ontario, a 10-minute city built around a future GO Train station
  • “Thousand-year worthy”: a provocative reframe of sustainability that rejects greenwashed corporate mandates and asks whether your building will still be standing in a millennium
  • From grief to startup: how nearly losing his father to COVID led Alex to design Cumulus, an immersive digital memorial platform that treats family memories with the reverence of an ancient tomb

Resources Related to the Episode

Key Publications, Interviews & Press

Tools, Projects & Methods

Background & Context

Cultural & Fun References

Episode Chapters

(Chapters are embedded in the episode for quick access, click this to expand and view all chapters and time stamps)
  • 0:00 Intro
  • 1:59 Guest Intro, Toronto & Tim Hortons
  • 3:59 “Spreadsheets in the Sky”
  • 9:40 A radical redesign of Mecca
  • 15:01 Interfaith architecture for peace
  • 17:59 Origins of the “Rebel Archtiect”
  • 31:49 PARTISANS – the “Apple” story of Architecture?
  • 37:25 The Grotto Sauna
  • 38:57 Urban Regeneration – The Hearn
  • 50:37 Building on the Garden City – The Orbit
  • 57:15 Receptivity to radical ideas from the client’s side
  • 1:01:41 Real issues with ‘sustainability’ in architecture
  • 1:12:12 Reflecting back on the why of pursuing architecture
  • 1:19:43 The impact of AI in Architecture
  • 1:23:04 The story of Cumulus – digital memorialization
  • 1:43:00 Q&A Start
  • 1:43:22 What does innovation mean to you?
  • 1:44:24 Key event, book, person
  • 1:47:19 Time Management
  • 1:49:55 Favourite childhood memory
  • 1:50:47 Biggest challenge to date
  • 1:53:33 Advice for young professionals
  • 1:55:19 What would you most like to be remembered for?
  • 1:57:03 Where can people find you?
  • 1:58:32 Final message
  • 1:58:45 Outro

Connect with Guest Name

Related Episodes

Episode #2 – Scott Lloyd
Cohabitation and close encounters with myths in urban design
(Related Topics: sustainable architecture, regenerative urbanism, design)
Episode #6 – Arya Arabshahi
Citymaking in times of crises, from yoghurt shops to plans of resistance
(Related Topics: architecture, urban design, citymaking)
Episode #21 – Danielle Dagenais
The paradox of nature – process and parts and its implications for green infrastructure
(Related Topics: garden city, nature, landscape architecture)
Episode #23 – Markus Vogl
To give ‘space’ – from a library to collaborative urban transformation and rethinking the architect’s role
(Related Topics: citymaking, placemaking, architecture and urban design)

Credits