Prakash Alvaras Landscape Architect

Prakash Alvaras Landscape Architect is situated in Victoria Layout, on Bal Rajeshwar Marg 82. My office isn't what you’d expect for an architect. It’s full of potted plants that I’m testing out and bags of different soil types sitting in the corner. I spend more time outside in the dirt than I do sitting behind a desk. Landscape work is messy. I’m usually wearing old clothes and boots that are caked in mud. Victoria Layout is a great spot because there’s still some green left around here. I started this because I liked being outdoors, and that hasn't changed. My desk is a disaster of sketches, botanical books, and rocks I’ve picked up from various sites. People come to me when they have a patch of land and no idea what to do with it. We talk about trees, drainage, and where the sun hits in the morning. I don't use a lot of fancy software for the initial ideas; I’d rather walk the ground and get a feel for the space. It’s a lot of physical labor, moving things around and seeing what survives the weather. Sometimes a design doesn't work because the soil is wrong, so we start over. It’s not about making things look perfect for a photo, it’s about making them grow. It’s a slow kind of work, but I wouldn't want to do anything else. Sometimes the bugs in the garden are a bit much, but that’s part of the trade.