Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

Arthur Thomas Davis had epilepsy. In the 1920s he was committed to the Woodlands Institution, a residential hospital for the developmentally challenged and people with mental disabilities. Davis died there in the 1930s and he was buried at the Woodlands Cemetery with 3000 deceased patients from Essondale (now Riverview), the Colony Farm facility for the elderly, and Woodlands. Jump decades ahead. Woodlands became a residential school for children with mental disabilities. As determined in a 2002 report, the students were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse. In this period, hospital administrators decided to remove headstones. The headstones were tossed into a ravine or used to pave a picnic patio for staff. For many, the memory of the cemetery is forgotten. Then the school was shut down. An oral history project was started by Simon Fraser University. Former patients and staff talked about a lost cemetery. The information spurred a patient family and survivor group to find ou...

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...

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...