Designing Our Story
A few months ago I met up with Ben Leavitt of PlaidFox Studio—our 2022 Interior Designer of the Year—at Maxine’s, a café in my neighbourhood. The Ste. Marie-designed restaurant is one of my favourite spots in the city, almost entirely because of the Paris-style bistro chairs that line the (enormous for Vancouver) patio. It’s transporting, but it’s also very much of this city right now: a warm and woodsy design, local and inventive takes for the menu, and just straight-up excellent vibes.
As we talked about the projects in his winning portfolio, Leavitt said something that really struck me. He told me that he always includes local maker talent in each of his projects, because, he says, “your house needs to tell your story, but it also needs to tell the story of where you live.”
That design truth is exemplified in all of our Designers of the Year award winners this year. There’s the maker who pairs technology with old-world techniques to create sculptures that replicate the coastal tides (page 72); the architectural duo who sustainably renovate homes, diverting construction waste from our landfills (page 34); and Leavitt himself (page 44), whose designs have incorporated work from many of his fellow winners and honorees—like Ones to Watch A Deumain (page 74) and Ffabb (page 69).
Western Living is now in our 15th year of these awards: it is our annual issue celebrating those designers who beautifully tell the story of where we live. Selecting our Designers of the Year is a process that takes about nine months: first recruiting our all-star panels of judges (read all about them on page 76), then calling in the entries for all nine categories from across the West, then gathering and presenting those design portfolios to our judges… and, finally, tallying the scores as they come rolling in.
We’ll be celebrating the winners in person once again this year—who knew those words would still be such a delight—and I hope you’ll join us. (Look for details of the September 13 event at westernliving.ca.) In the meantime, the team here at Western Living offers a heartfelt congratulations to this year’s winners. We can’t wait to hear all of the stories you have yet to tell, one beautiful local design at a time.