Landscape Designer of the Year 2024: Alexander Suvajac

Alexander Suvajac may have grown up planting flowers for neighbours, helping with landscaping projects on his dad’s construction sites and taking on summer gardening gigs to pay for travel expenses, but working in the field wasn’t on his when-I-grow-up radar. “I was never thinking about a career in garden design—I didn’t even know what landscape architecture was,” he recalls.

Besides: how could something that came so naturally to him possibly be a job? “I always thought work had to be hard; that it’s a grind,” he says, “but this was already a throughline in my life story.” After studying industrial design at Vancouver’s Emily Carr University, Suvajac applied for a master’s degree in architecture… and landscape architecture, just in case. “I ended up getting a scholarship for landscape and waitlisted for architecture, so the decision was made,” he says with a laugh.

So Suvajac’s clients have fate, in part, to thank for their beautiful, balanced outdoor spaces (in backyards and beyond). Some of his projects work to merge with the natural environment as much as possible—take his Myra Canyon home, for example, a project that embraces the surrounding arid meadows and ponderosa forests of the Okanagan. “We brought in what was already growing in the area but also started to elevate the landscape, so it becomes more tailored the closer you get to the house,” he explains. Suvajac’s PF Vancouver home in the Kitsilano neighbourhood similarly incorporates the mountain views of the Pacific Northwest together with nods to traditional Japanese garden design (think: Japanese maples, bonsai-like strawberry trees and creeping honeysuckle).

Other works aim to create a retreat  within an urban environment, like his Curio project, a suburban home in Richmond. “There were privacy issues; it’s a unique parcel surrounded by townhouses in almost all directions,” the designer explains. Veils of bamboo, a timber pergola and arbour and strategic hedging help the space feel secluded, but still airy and serene.

Then, there’s the odd project that  totally transports you: the best example in Suvajac’s portfolio is Circle Wellness Spa, a self-guided thermal spa on Vancouver’s Granville Island. Unlike the other candy-coloured buildings on the tourist-heavy peninsula, the spa is dressed strikingly all in black. A short portal-like entryway guides guests into a small courtyard of granite aggregate and gravel, with yellow cedar decking and thoughtfully placed green-leaf Japanese maples and sword ferns. “It’s an otherworldly experience; you can shed  whatever tensions you might have coming in and just connect,” says the designer. This project is also a good example of Suvajac’s passion for his work, despite being in the industry since he was barely a teenager.  “Am I getting into too much detail?” he asks,  deep into talking about flood lines and the pragmatic challenges of building an oasis on a parking lot. “It’s easy for me to nerd out talking about landscape.”

Q&A with Alexander Suvajac

Was there a childhood moment that hinted design was in your future?

I recall some of my earliest  memories being fascinated by materials and by texture, forms in the built and natural world. That fascination has never ended.

What’s your dream project?

I have a few regenerative place-making projects in mind that take drastically disturbed land “restoration sites” and transform them into destinations that are both ecologically and aesthetically alluring. Or, in general, anything that promotes deep nature immersion and design that taps into the energetic and circadian rhythms of a space, like a landscape hotel.

 

READ MORE: Meet Western Living’s Designers to Watch in 2024