“Once I learned that architecture is a job, I never considered any other career.”
Solares co-founder and principal Christine Lolley has been in love with residential architecture all her life. As a young child, she would draw layouts for the buildings she read about in books. Later, she spent her allowance on floor plan books from the newsstand and played games with friends in which they would draw a random shape and she would transform it into a logical floor plan of a house.
Christine chose the architecture program at the University of Waterloo for its mix of formal education and practical job training. The experience was a revelation. “I had never met anyone in my life who had the same passion for buildings and architecture that I did,” she says. Christine did study-abroad semesters at McGill University in Montreal and through UW in Rome, and worked with large architecture firms in New York, Toronto, and London. She earned Bachelor and Master degrees in Architecture at Waterloo, concluding with a graduate thesis on sustainable housing.
In 2005, Christine and Tom founded Solares Architecture with the goal of helping like-minded clients create homes that reflect their values. “We work with clients who have modest budgets and who know we will do right by them,” she says. “People put their trust in us to make their dream come true.”
Christine is a Registered Licensed Architect with the Ontario Association of Architects, and a LEED Accredited Professional.
