Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

The horizon has broadened. JJ Lee is now writing about women's fashion. The first piece is about my visit to Hajnalka Mandula's Homer Street boutique. Check it out at The Georgia Straight.

On Friday, Nick Sully and Hannah Teicher won the Cleveland Design Competition - Project 2007. The architectural designers received the nod for their proposal for the down-and-out neighbourhood of Irishtown Bend in Cleveland. Described by organizers as, "unused, overgrown, and largely inaccessible," Sully and Teicher proposed turning the abandoned riverside site into an urban agricultural wetland that would bridge two adjacent neighbourhoods with walkways. Check out their winning project . And here's Teicher beginning the interview with a d escription of the project . Note: Nick Sully recently started his own architectural practice in Vancouver. To find out more visit nicksully.com . Hannah Teicher is an architectural intern with a diverse developing practicing combining sociology and architecture.

Photograph by Yvette St. Amant Tuesday night, I moderated a discussion with interior designer Robert Ledingham at the presentation centre for Stirling House, a development near the Vancouver School of Theology at Point Grey. Ledingham designed ten suites in the luxury building, branded the Ledingham Collection. Potential buyers, Ledingham fans and former clients (I assume they are the one and the same) were in attendance. We talked about Ledingham's 40 year career and how he has epitomized west coast style with his early years of practice at Thompson Berwick and Pratt and later in his collaborations with distinguished Vancouver architects like James Cheng, Peter Busby, and Arthur Erickson. Ledingham was a delightful presenter and it was quite a novel experience for me.

The Graphic Designers of Canada awarded typographer Jim Rimmer an honourary fellowship at its general meeting in Montreal. Scott Cohen, who recently had his design for Gastropod received a silver medal by Vancouver Magazine's Restaurant Awards , is designing a new Tomato, the iconic Cambie street eatery. The location - behind Mark James on West Broadway. And word is, the time is ripe to bid adieu to the Canada Line chaos at Cambie. Erin Templeton just opened her first boutique at the location of Modernize Tailors. That's 511 Cambie. With her experience in vintage retail, design, and as a green grocer in UK, marvelous Ms. Templeton will definitely turn it into a grand success.

Last year the Vancouver Art Gallery mounted a major exhibition on the works of architect Arthur Erickson. Never thought of as a retrospective, the show focused on Erickson's continuing investigation into certain themes: light, concrete as a poetic material, and nature and the landscape. Here is show curator Nicholas Olsberg, former director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, in conversation with Vancouver By Design (16 minutes) .