By Julia Harmsworth

It’s not uncommon for Burlington-based landscape architecture firm Seferian Design Group (SDG)’s projects to take more than half a decade to complete.

Over 30 years into the company’s life, it graduated to massive projects — university campuses, elite backyards and multimillion-dollar parks. One such project, the Gardens at Pillar and Post at the site of a vintage hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., opened to the public seven years after design began. a

The space features multiple events venues, plus a six-acre park that is open to the public when not in use by the Pillar and Post hotel. It features vegetable gardens, water features, a promenade, 26,000 shrubs and 300 large caliper trees, with one over 60 feet tall.

“Thank God we filmed it going in the ground, because when we tell people we planted it, nobody believes us,” said Haig Seferian, principal landscape architect at SDG. “This tree came from Oakville and it was lying on its side on a flatbed trailer, the tree ball was so large it would not go underneath the bridges on the highway,” Seferian recalled.

“They had to leave at two in the morning and it took them eight hours to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake from Oakville. At every bridge, they had to get off and go around on the service road. And then we had a 100-tonne crane on the other end. That type of thing you don’t see often.”
  Pillar and Post, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

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Another thing you don’t see often: The three-year design process included a field trip to Giverny, France, home of impressionist painter Claude Monet’s gardens. The Pillar and Post project recreated Monet’s gardens with a Seferian spin — with certain elements like bridges and the pond inspired by Monet’s watercolours. “That’s where all that research came in,” Seferian noted.

The project was internationally recognized with a Gold Certification at the Grands Prix du Design, an Architecture MasterPrize in Landscape Architecture and a DNA Paris Design Award — plus a Landscape Ontario Award of Excellence.

“The most fulfilling piece is still getting comments like, ‘Hey, we went to visit your park. It looks fantastic. We had a great time,’” Seferian said. “Ultimately, that’s why we do it. I look at 
that park and Waterloo park — these are legacy parks. They’re never going away. And as long as people keep going and using the space, enjoying it, [and] they get maintained well so they look better every year, that’s all I could hope for as a landscape designer.”

The Waterloo Park project is similarly lauded. Led by SDG’s senior landscape architect Brad Smith, the project centred around the restoration of a pond suffering from built-up sediment. The team drained the pond, then dredged it to clean it out, eventually letting water back in and creating more habitat.

An added beachfront and boardwalk encourage visitors to view the refreshed pond and new plant life from above. The project took six years and cost $20 million to complete.

“It’s taken a long time to get here, but finally we’re doing some world-class projects,” Seferian said. “I feel like we’re making our mark on the industry, and that’s not so much because of me. We’ve got a solid team now, and they’re all so excited and creative, talented individuals. They make me look good.” Waterloo Park, Waterloo, Ont.

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Designing with dialogue

Seferian credits a lot of his inspiration to his staff. If an architect (junior or senior) comes across an interesting design, they snap a photo and send it to the group. “We all do it with each other. We want people to see what we’re seeing and I want to see what they’re seeing through their eyes,” Seferian said.

Everyone has their specialty, but no project is designed by just one person. It’s all a conversation, and this level of integrity, commitment and loyalty to each other is reflected in the finished product. Step one to any design is walking through the site and bouncing ideas off each other.

“We’ll go as a team and we’ll just start talking about it. You start walking the site, you find the high point, the low point, where’s the best view [...] and before you know it, you’re having this wonderful design dialogue. Then, you start sketching and building on each other’s ideas,” Seferian explained.

“That’s the most exciting part: the conceptual end, the ‘what if’ questions. It opens up this great discussion that can be had with the team and with the client. That’s really where the dreaming takes place.”

SDG has 10 people on staff. Seferian expects that number to go up to 15 or 16 in the next couple of years. Two years ago, the company outsourced a strategic plan to double in size in three years and is well on that path. The plan included hiring people who wanted to work at SDG specifically — people who had studied their work and wanted to be a part of it. This approach produced the strongest team the company has ever had. 
 
Seferian creates a clear direction for each staff member. He prioritizes mentorship, ensuring each person is on the road to becoming a licensed landscape architect. It works for everyone: motivated staff get a growth plan and SDG gets experience, qualified successors for when Seferian decides to retire.

“The projects our junior team are working on now I suspect their classmates in other offices wouldn’t be touching for five years,” he said. “We’re starting them off on the ground running. We want them to get that experience. So we’re really helping them along. They love the autonomy. They’re looking for more.” Queen's Square restoration project, Cambridge, Ont.

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Bigger and better

When asked which project is his favourite, Seferian couldn’t answer: “Whatever I told you now, the next project would be my new favourite!” The company just landed the biggest job of its career: a 40-acre park for the City of Vaughan. Seferian described it as “Waterloo Park on steroids.” Construction is on the go, scheduled to wrap up in five years.

SDG has no plans of slowing down. It’s in a period of growth, building on its strategic plan. Seferian never tires of public parks; they let the public experience what he was thinking at the design table. He wants to keep pushing himself, his staff and the broader landscape community to keep getting better. 

Since graduating from the University of Guelph’s Landscape Architecture program in the ‘80s, Seferian has been a fixture within the Landscape Ontario community. He’s on a long list of committees and emceed the association’s annual Awards of Excellence ceremony for many years. He strongly believes in people, collaboration and the ethos of levelling up.

“Landscape is landscape, but exceptional landscape comes from exceptional people,” he said. “We want to keep pushing ourselves to do more incredible things. We want to be the best at what we do, not only here in Toronto and Canada and North America, but internationally as well.”

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