Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

It was two years ago this month that a massive tsunami off the coast of Indonesia killing nearly 200 000 people. The regions affected have been on a long road to reconstruction and BC design and building technology are having an impact in the effort. Britco , a prefabricated and modular home builder in Langley, BC, have been contracted by Save The Children USA to build housing elements that will make up 300 homes in Aceh province. And if things go well, it will lead to the construction of 3000 homes where it's believed 160 000 people died in the tsunami. The other player in this story is the BC Institute of Technology . They're providing training and design experience and skills to Indonesian builders in the region with money from BC's Forestry Innovation Investment, Wayne Stevens, director of Canadian Housing and Construction Centre at BCIT, says BCIT instructor Doug Betts "just finished up teaching a three-week course in platform frame construction in Indonesia for ...

Bernie Hadley-Beauregard of Brandever, a wine branding expert who is revolutionizing what goes on the bottle of a top-selling label, just posted my interview with him on his website . We met in August at a perfect setting for a discussion about booze and design - a recently opened bar, 1181 (1181 Davie Street). The elegant contemporary-styled bar was created by the team of Battersby and Howat . Listen , 8.3 megs.

Sacred Spaces is a special series on CBC Radio One looking at the idea of spiritual places in the Lower Mainland. I focused on the design of religious spaces. Mark Ostry of Acton Ostry Architects met me at the first religious building they ever designed, Har El Synagogue, where he gave me a tour of the building. For more info on Acton Ostry, check out their site .

I've lately been thinking about Raymond Moriyama of Moriyama & Teshima Architects I interviewed him for The Current just before the opening of the World Urban Forum this summer. We spent a great couple of hours together talking about a sensitive topic. Moriyama designed hundreds of buildings around the world but one of his most important recent works is the Canadian War Museum which, as Anna Maria Tremonti said, is "a bittersweet irony considering-- as a boy--- he was one of the 20,000 Japanese-Canadians interred by the federal government during World War Two." Well, Moriyama and I toured his old neighbourhood. We started our trip into the past in a taxi headed to a part of the downtown eastside that used to be known as Japantown. It's after the letters section of the June 15, 2006 edition of The Current Listen. I think what he had to say about Vancouver was absolutely reasonable, valid and understandably tinged with his personal experience. Local architects, how...

(aired November 6) Sick of nylon or rubber raincoats? I sure am, especially the raspy hand of the fabric and the ridiculous scratchy sound it makes when you walk. It's like that episode of Seinfeld when George Constanza wore a nylon business suit. Any way, isn't it time to make the jump to an organic fabric. As reported before On The Coast during my segment of VBD, natural fibers like hemp and bamboo are finding their way onto the runway. And maybe it's time for waxed cotton to make it into your wardrobe. Yes that's right, for once I am ahead of the curve and in touch with the climatological and fashion zeitgeist. I have been thinking about how waxed cotton or oilskins will be next year's fall outerwear fabric. The origins of waxed cotton is mixed into the history of the British imperial expansion. Originally, sailors made raingear out of linen sailcloth proofed with linseed oil. When the linseed aged, it would yellow which is the origin of the bright yellow rainc...

This morning I spoke with Leila Zeppelin, the lead designer of the Air India Memorial and the Ceperley Meadow Playground redevelopment. She is with Lees & Associates , a landscape firm with a focus on cemetery and memorial design. The conceptual drawings were presented at a public meeting last Thursday held by the Vancouver Parks Board. It was met with no objections and now Parks board staff will draft a resolution to be voted on in the future. And now, the Air India design concept is no longer under wraps, however, there are no images online as of yet. Check the Vancouver Parks Board for more info . The proposal calls for a terraced picnic area that cascades to a redeveloped playground. The playground will use natural elements like rocks, boulders and driftwood to create create the play area instead of standard playground equipment. With collective spaces and apparatus that encourage group play like disc-shaped swings and giant hammock under a driftwood arc, Zeppelin hopes the des...

The city of Vancouver is trying to complete a seawall circuit around the downtown peninsula but it has to go through one of the city's most historically rich and socially complex streets: Carrall Street. To complete the Seawall walk, Carrall Street will go through a makeover. It's refered to as the " Carrall Street Greenway Project ". Carrall Street will be the final piece of a puzzle creating a waterfront walk going from Crab Park in Gastown, all along the Burrard Inlet, around Stanley Park to a seawall along False Creek through Livingston Park to the border of Chinatown and Downtown or International Village. The design is meant to attract tourists and encourage a vibrant street life for residents in the area. It may not be the most expensive project in the city, it's only $5 million, but it is one of the major undertakings by the city even when held against major infrastructure projects such as the $1.7 billion RAV line. Like the Woodwards development, the Carra...

From Mara Gottler's Spring/Summer 2007 collection, the designer contrasts minimal jacket details with a profusion of expressive pant pleats BC Fashion Week wrapped up. I went to two shows that caught my interest: Shelley Klassen of Blushing Designs and Mara Gottler. They were a study of contrasting design approaches. Both their runway shows were on Friday night at Performance Works Theatre on Granville Island in Vancouver. Seen together, they provoked thoughts about the role of BC Fashion Week. We are in a globalized fashion and media environment where places like Paris, New York and Milan seem to get all the attention and eclipse local efforts to the point, one needs to ask, "Who needs local design?" And who needs BC Fashion Week? Doesn't it merely ape what goes on at the fashion centres. More importantly, do exercises like BC Fashion Week have any impact on design and fashion culture in this city and beyond? Shelley Klassen, the head of Blushing Designs, is a good ...

Mary Beth Rondeau is an architect with the City of Vancouver. She believes design decisions can help fight crime. Hear Rondeau's CBC interview with JJ Lee. It aired as part of a special series called, "On the Case with On The Coast." Listen.

The final Kean Commission Report was a best seller. Now, a comic book version of the 9/11 commission report has just been published. Called "The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation", it was created by two old pros: Sid Jacobsen, former editor-in-chief of Harvey Comic books and Ernie Colon. He drew Richie Rich and Casper at Harvey and also worked as the artist for DC titles including The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. How did they handle the sensitive subject matter? First of all, the book takes on a serious look. Very straight forward cover. No exclamation marks or exploding captions - things you would identify with comic book covers. Any thought that the adaption trivializes the event of September 11 are assuaged by commission chair Thomas Kean and vice-chair Lee Hamilton. Plus, there's an extravagant blurb by Stan Lee. Inside, Jacobson and Colon take advantage of all the comic book idioms to clarify what happened before and on 9/11. Maybe comic books were made for...

This week's column focuses on dinner jacket faux-pas and rules to follow if you're renting a one. If there's a space at the back of the neck of your jacket, it doesn't fit you. Try to rent one size smaller and, if that doesn't work, go for one-button jackets which are cut tighter. Don't wear a cummerbund - do you really need something that's described in The Oxford Concise as a loin band. If you want to simplify the point where the pants and shirt meet, wear a satin sash...on second thought, forget about it. Rent it if the body fits and the sleeves don't...sleeves can be adjusted. Never rent the shirt. Never show more than three buttons or studs on your shirt when your jacket is buttoned. It's supposed to be a shirt not an elevator control panel. Frills never, pleats not good, plain front shirts just right. Belts or suspenders, neither. Your pants should fit you without either. Use the side tabs for comfort as the evening goes on. Show an inch of cuf...

JJ Lee tours a memorial garden designed to address the history of abuse at the Woodlands Institution in New Westminster. The Woodlands Institution in New Westminster originally buried dead patients in an on-site cemetary. It's believed 3300 bodies are there. Most of the buried were patients at the asylum and many were children with physical and mental disabilities. While the Woodlands has been closed since 1996, a provincial inquiry concluded in 2002 there was a history of sexual and physical abuse at the institution. The deceased at Woodlands were treated no better. Back in the 1970s the burial ground was designated a park and most of the tombstones were removed. Many stones were recycled for use in the staff barbeque pits and to line drainage ditches. Some were unceremoniously dumped and buried as waste. But this summer, the site is being transformed into a memorial garden. Driving the rehabilitation is series of residential developments on the old Woodlands grounds. Erik Lees h...

Last week, Vancouver by Design reviewed an exhibition called, Some Assembly Required . The Vancouver Art Gallery is presenting the traveling show from the Walker Art Center, Minnesota on contemporary pre-fab housing (that review will be posted soon). One of the goals of the show was to feature architects who designed contemporary or modern-styled prefabs. It also underscores how modern design ideas are at work in new smaller homes and suites no matter what style the come in - neo-Craftsman, Palladian stucco, or high-rise slick - it doesn't matter. Open plans, which means not parceling space into small rooms (living, dining kitchen) and the extension of visual space by using lotswindows and views to bring the outside into the home are two obvious examples of modern architectures contribution to domestic home design. But what are the other ways to make small homes, both apartments and single-family residences, look and feel bigger? This is especially relevant to the Vancouver market ...

The Whitecaps' proposal to build a new soccer stadium received a red card from the Vancouver Heritage Commission today. The VHC declared it "detrimental" to the heritage values of Gastown on Monday afternoon. The decision, while not binding, is one of several negative responses from advisory commissions who report to Vancouver's city council. The football club wants to build a 15 000-seat stadium over the railyard between Granville Square and Cambie Street. It would have to be built 10 metres above the tracks creating what some fear would be a giant wall on the northern edge of Gastown. Commissioner Cheryl Cooper said, "It flies completely in the face of what the Heritage Commission has been trying to achieve in Gastown and would disrupt the neighbourhood and the quality of life." VHC member James Burton said, "It would obliterate what you see from the water." Another member, Cam Cathcart, said the scale of the project "appalls me." But n...

(This column originally aired on CBC Radio One AM 690, On The Coast, April 3, 2006) A recent exhibition called "Graphex '06 - Do The Thing That You Do - Canadian Style" at the Pendulum Gallery in Vancouver asked, "Is there such a thing as a Canadian graphic design aesthetic?" The Graphic Designers of Canada organized the show as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. An international jury including Rick Poynor, an influential design writer and founder of Eye magazine, selected over 60 works from over 600 submissions by Canadian graphic design firms. Representing the best works from 2005, a great local winner was Rethink. They're mostly known for their cheeky ads (a personal favourite is Rethink's TV campaign for Junior Achievers of BC featuring ethically-challenged business people teaching school kids shady, Enron-like practices and the tag line, "Teach kids everything you know about business...Well, almost everything.") but the agency has...

(A radio version of this column aired on Monday, Feb. 27) Monday morning at the airport, Jason Trotzuk is off to Quebec City. Next week it's Hong Kong and China. Global conquest in the world of denim requires logging lots of flight time. But that's the price you pay, when you design jeans that make women look, as Trotzuk says, "smoking hot." As founder and designer of the year-old company, Fidelity Denim, Jason Trotzuk has had a dizzying 2005. When women like Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, and Michelle Kwan don your dungarees, the media takes notice. Trotzuk says, "It's been a frenzy." With mentions in the New York Times, Elle, and Fashion proclaiming Fidelity "must-have" pants, Trotzuk is capitalizing on the public relations ride but he's also working hard to back the hype up with a strong product. "People in the press like to focus on the fit," he says. "But there's also the fabric and the finish." Trotzuk, who sees ...

According to the blog http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com, Lloyd Kahn is on his way to BC. Kahn is best known for his advocacy of do-it-yourself homebuilding. He will be documenting structures for his upcoming book, Builders of the Northwest Coast . In 1973, Kahn published the iconoclastic work, Shelter . It captured the world of counter-cultural constructions of the 1960s, including yurts, sod roofs, geodesic domes, and recycled shacks, decades before "green" architecture became a catch-phrase. Along with building theorist, Christopher Alexander, Kahn exerted a powerful influence on socially-conscience architects and architecture students at the University of British Columbia. Keep visiting for updates as Vancouver By Design is working hard to bring Lloyd Kahn "On The Coast."

The Design Exchange mailed the below in its Express newsletter: Oops! We Made a Mistake! Our recent Express alert included a teaser announcing an upcoming project with Culture.ca. This project is only at the conceptual stage and no decision to proceed has been made. We apologize for any inconvenience the announcement may have caused. For further information, contact: Paola Poletto, Senior Director, DX Programs. paola@dx.org

A competition sponsored by the Department of Canadian Heritage has raised the ire of graphic designers. The contest is called My Canadian Cultural Gateway Webpage Competition. The Design Exchange, a design museum in Toronto, is running the open call to redesign the website, Culture.ca. Culture.ca is a gateway into Canadian cultural content. It provides links to Canadian architecture, film, graphics, literature, arts and culture in Canada. It also has links to the CBC archives and Radio 3. There’s design news and a listing of festivals and events across the country. The redesign contest will consider all entries. A committee will pick the top three proposals and there will be an online vote. The winning project team will receive $2500. So what’s the controversy? Mark Busse, design director of Industrial Brand Creative of Vancouver, is infuriated by the whole idea. He says, “The open competition solicits free work from anyone who cares to call themselves designers.” He says, “It’s not th...

(A radio version of this column aired "On the Coast" on February 6.) Last week, John Furlong, chief executive of the Vancouver Organising Committee (VANOC), said the cost of venue building for the 2010 Olympics has gone up by $110 from $470 million to $580 million. Furlong wants B.C. and the federal government to cover the shortfall. Furlong also added that VANOC had already cut $85 million to keep their building projects under control. They already stopped the construction of an international broadcasting centre in Richmond, B.C. Instead, it will be rolled into the press centre housed in the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre. But what impact will cost increases and project cuts have on the design of the remaining Olympic buildings to be constructed in Vancouver and Whistler? Their costs are going up. Will it lead to weaker design? It may be hard to calculate. For example, take the Richmond Olympic Oval which many consider the signature building of the Vancouver Olym...