https://www.bnkc.ca/people/jonathan-king/
Provide a brief summary of your practice experience.
I am a Principal at BNKC Architects Inc., a Toronto practice founded in 1969. I joined as a Partner in 2017 and have co-led the firm since 2019, with responsibility for business development and practice management.
In nearly 30 years of practice I have delivered projects from inception through completion. I began as an intern architect at Kasian in Vancouver and worked at Quadrangle and Core Architects in Toronto. My institutional and P3 experience came at Diamond Schmitt, where I was a Senior Project Architect, at HOK, where I was a Senior Associate, and at CannonDesign, where I was Vice President. I later served as Director, Ontario at Humphreys & Partners, where I helped establish the Toronto office, and as Director of Operations at Q4 Architects.
Having worked in firms ranging from global practices to owner-led studios, I know how procurement, fees, approvals and professional obligations play out at each scale.
Today my work centres on purpose-built rental housing in the Greater Toronto Area. Two projects now in Site Plan Approval will deliver more than 365 market and affordable homes, using cold-formed steel with modular envelopes on one and cast-in-place concrete on the other. Earlier work includes the eight-storey mass timber building at 77 Wade Avenue.
I trained at the Architectural Association in London (AA Dipl. 1995) after a BA from Western University, and I hold OAA, MRAIC and LEED AP designations.
Provide a brief summary of your previous governance experience (boards, councils, committees, advisory groups, etc.).
My governance experience spans a non-profit board, committee leadership and industry councils, alongside the responsibilities of owning a practice.
I served on the Board of Directors of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto from 2012 to 2016, sharing fiduciary responsibility for a large, long-established congregation and its finances, staff and strategic direction. Since 2018 I have chaired its House Committee, which oversees the Temple’s building and facilities. Chairing has taught me how to run a meeting that reaches a decision, how to report to a board, and how to hold the line between a committee’s oversight and the work of staff.
With the Urban Land Institute, I served on the ULI Toronto Outreach Committee from 2015 to 2022, and since 2025 I have been a member of the ULI Canada Product Council, a national peer forum of senior practitioners addressing development issues across the country.
As a principal and shareholder of BNKC Architects, I also share responsibility for the firm’s strategic direction, finances, professional liability and regulatory compliance.
Across these roles the common lesson has been to separate my own interests, and those of any group I come from, from the interests of the organization I am serving. I understand that to be the core of a Councillor’s duty, with the public interest in place of the organization’s.
Why are you interested in serving on Council at this time?
My career has had two halves. The first, at Diamond Schmitt, HOK and CannonDesign, was spent on institutional and P3 work: publicly funded buildings delivered under complex contracts, where the architect’s duty to the public is tested against commercial pressure every day. The second, at BNKC, has been spent on housing, and rental housing in particular. Between them I have seen the profession from both sides of its most pressing questions, namely how public buildings are procured and how homes get built.
In that time the conditions around practice have changed faster than at any point I can remember. Provincial legislation has rewritten approvals, delivery methods are shifting toward modular and mass timber, and AI tools are entering offices before anyone has settled how responsibility for their output is assigned. Each of these bears directly on the public interest the OAA exists to protect.
I am at a stage where I can give Council the time it deserves, and I know how regulation lands in a working office, from global firms to a mid-sized, owner-led practice. I offer that not as a constituency to be represented but as practical knowledge that tests whether policy works.
I also believe self-regulation is a privilege that has to be earned continuously. I would like to do my share, and the next term, which will shape the Association’s next strategic plan, is a good moment to contribute.
What do you believe are the key challenges or priorities for Council over the next one to three years?
The first priority is the long-standing tension between the OAA’s role as regulator and members’ expectation that it also advocate for the profession. The statutory mandate is to protect the public, yet members have long looked to the OAA to speak on fees, procurement and contracts. The launch this year of the Canadian Association for the Practice of Architecture (CAPA), a national body created to advance the business interests of firms, changes that picture.
I do not come with a fixed answer. Council should examine, openly and with members, whether CAPA’s arrival helps reconcile that tension or simply rearranges it. Which matters now sit more naturally with a business association? Where does advocacy remain part of protecting the public, as with procurement practices that compromise quality or safety? And since CAPA’s founding members are among the country’s largest firms, what does this mean for small and mid-sized practices? Finding the right balance, and explaining it clearly to members, is work for this Council.
Second, the next strategic plan. The current plan ends in 2027, so this Council will set the direction that follows, and this question belongs within it.
Third, artificial intelligence. The public needs assurance that an architect’s seal still means a licensed person has taken responsibility.
Finally, competence amid rapid change in housing delivery, construction methods and climate requirements.
Questions and Answers