Chances are, if you find yourself in a hip, impeccably orchestrated Toronto restaurant or night spot it is very likely the work of DesignAgency. Allen Chan is one of the three co-founders of this internationally renowned go-to for curated-yet-eclectic interiors. Besides its countless projects in Toronto alone – including Momofuku restaurant, SoHo House and Broadview Hotel – the firm scored a major coup when it was commissioned to create the interiors for the Generator Hostel brand’s multiple hubs around the world.

Claire Weisz is a founder of WXY, the New York firm that has set the benchmark for civic pride–inducing public projects and urban design. In the past two years alone, the firm has made utilities sexy with its salt shed and garage for New York’s sanitation department and brought back the Rockaways beachfront with its post-Sandy boardwalk renewal design.

DTAH is the firm behind some of Toronto’s most beloved community spaces and parks projects, including the Artscape Wychwood Barns and Evergreen Brick Works. Megan Torza, a partner at the firm since 2012, has blazed a trail by leading on the design and implementation of numerous urban farmers’ markets, affordable housing and park pavilions. One of her major projects: the ongoing visioning study for an innovative urban farm and therapeutic greenhouse at the University Health Network.

Much imitated but never replicated, Michael Anastassiades’ bold, poetic lighting exists at the threshold of art and design. The Londoner’s work is a perennial must-see at Milan and London design weeks. Since setting up his studio in 1994, he’s also created furniture and accessories – which, like his lighting, are energized by his unmistakable aesthetic of elemental shapes and volumes – for both his eponymous label and international brands like Herman Miller, Salvatori, Nilufar and Svenskt Tenn.

A bona fide rock star in his native Mexico, Michel Rojkind quit music to pursue architecture, and gained another kind of fame. Since 2002, when he founded Rojkind Arquitectos, he’s been attracting global attention for his cutting-edge sensibility – he was identified as an Emerging Voice by New York’s Architectural League in 2010 – and this in turn has helped shine a spotlight on contemporary architecture in his country. His most recently completed project is a jaw-dropper: the majestic, sculpted-from-concrete Foro Boca in Veracruz, which will be the future home of the Boca del Rio Philharmonic Orchestra.