Western Living Magazine
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Join Us for Our First Western Living Design 25 Party!
Announcing the Finalists for the 2025 Western Living Design 25 Awards
The winners of our 15th annual celebration honouring the best designers in Western Canada.
It’s finally here: our 15th annual issue honouring the best designers in Western Canada. From striking architecture to inspiring interior design to incredible handmade wares, the portfolios of these designers are truly spectacular. Experts from around the world had the (very difficult) task of selecting the best of the best for our 2022 awards. Thank you to our judges and to all who entered—through mindful, inventive, and beautiful design, you’re making the West a better place to be. Congratulations to Western Living’s 2022 Designers of the Year award winners. We’ll be celebrating all winners and finalists at our (in-person!) 2022 awards party on September 13, 2022 in Vancouver. You’re invited—get your tickets here.
Architects of the Year: Measured Architecture
Interior Designer of the Year: Plaidfox Studio
Arthur Erickson Memorial Award for an Emerging Architect: Scott Posno
Robert Ledingham Memorial Award for an Emerging Interior Designer: Studio Roslyn
Fashion Designer of the Year: Vestige
Landscape Designer of the Year: Planta Landscape
Industrial Designer of the Year: Workbench Studio
Furniture Designer of the Year: Nicholas Purcell
Maker of the Year: Origins
Designers of the Year: Ones to Watch
What’s in a name? Measured Architecture was barely a year old when we launched these awards in 2008, and our three-home entry requirement meant the duo had to include their own personal homes (which they had designed) in their submission. Still, they went ahead and threw their collective hat in the ring. It was an act of moxie… but “measured”? Not so much. READ MORE ⇒
Ben Leavitt remembers the moment he realized his latest clients were a perfect match for his firm, PlaidFox Studio. “In the first meeting they asked, ‘Is there a way that we could incorporate a Slurpee machine in the kitchen?’” he says with a laugh. “And I thought, ‘These are my people.’” READ MORE ⇒
Scott Posno began his career the way many young architects do: after graduating architecture school, he was hired by a firm and incorporated into a team of designers tackling large-scale projects. But that kind of work wasn’t for him. “I was not enjoying working on big buildings—I had little interest in schools and hospitals,” he admits. “You don’t feel like you’re having any input.” READ MORE ⇒
Everyone has heard the warnings about not mixing business with friendship. But Studio Roslyn—winners of the 2022 Robert Ledingham Memorial Award for an emerging interior designer—is hard proof that there’s no greater creative muse.
“It’s a real love story,” says Kate Snyder, co-principal of the Vancouver-based interiors firm. She and business partner Jessica MacDonald met 12 years ago while studying architecture at the University of Manitoba. On the surface, they seemed polar opposites as they clocked each other across the lecture hall: Snyder was a “skater-punk country mouse”; MacDonald was dressed in pearls and a Sarah Jessica Parker-chic fur coat. But during a shared car ride after a group project, something clicked. READ MORE ⇒
Most people might not see an obvious trajectory from English major to slow-fashion designer, but for Vestige’s Aileen Lee the connecting thread is storytelling. “Clothing is very telling of our culture, who we are and where we’re from,” she says. “With my literature background, I naturally have always loved stories and I view clothing as an extension of our identity.” READ MORE ⇒
Our 2022 Landscape Designer of the Year began her professional design career in interiors, but soon found herself drawn to the wildness of the outdoors. “If you renovate your kitchen, your kitchen will look like that until you do it again—but outside, every day will be different,” says María del Sol Galdón of Planta Landcape. Her passion for plants runs in the family—Galdón grew up on a ranch in Mendoza, Argentina; her father was an agronomist and her parents owned a small landscaping company. The shift to design al fresco was a no-brainer: “I already knew a lot of the plant material, and I had a design education to back me up,” she says. “I was even more comfortable designing landscapes than I was designing interiors.” READ MORE ⇒
It’s fitting that a workbench is one of the projects that earned Mario Paredes our 2022 Industrial Designer of the Year award. After all, it’s the same functional piece of furniture that inspired the very name of his design studio, Workbench, and it’s also one of many pieces that connect him to his late father—an engineer who was always working on one thing or another in their family’s garage in Barcelona. “My father was my role model and mentor,” Paredes shares. READ MORE ⇒
20 years into a career in graphic design and living in New Jersey, Nicholas Purcell flipped through a woodworking magazine and spotted a set of ads promoting some British furniture makers. “I thought, this is what I need to do. And we need to pop over there and see if it’s going to work,” says our 2022 Furniture Designer of the Year. READ MORE ⇒
Rules are made to be broken, sure. But as the creative force behind Origins demonstrates, rules can also be bent in a way that births something entirely new. This isn’t the first time Deagan McDonald has won a WL Designers of the Year award—in fact, in 2021 he and Origins co-founder Kelsey Nilsen (who now works as an architect full-time) triumphed for their experimental yet functional furniture. This year, our 2022 Maker of the Year is using the same innovative techniques in a completely different way—creating customizable, thoughtful wall sculptures made entirely from solid wood. READ MORE ⇒
READ MORE: Meet Western Living’s Designers to Watch in 2022
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