312 Main Coworking

A sculptural reception desk for a community coworking hub, built from 350 salvaged Hemlock blocks — a gesture of new life within a repurposed police station, designed to fit seamlessly into its surroundings.

Daly Co. was invited to contribute to an important redevelopment project in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside — the adaptive reuse of a former police station into a multi-use community hub that includes cultural space, coworking, workshops, and offices.

While we contributed early design concepts for a range of spaces, we ultimately focused on the second-floor welcome desk for the coworking area. Originally built in 1953, the building had been stripped back to its concrete skeleton, leaving behind only a few key details: square tiled exterior cladding and marble-clad stairwells with bronze fixtures. Our intention was to design a reception desk that felt as though it had grown from the space itself — a gesture of new life emerging from the building’s raw structure.

The inspiration came from the values of community and togetherness. Like a community built brick by brick, this desk was composed of 350 individual Western Hemlock blocks, each one cut square and assembled into an organically flowing form. The structure also includes integrated cabinetry and a U-shaped solid surface countertop, CNC cut and installed seamlessly.

We collaborated with James Spouler to develop a CNC-cut formwork system that translated the 3D model into precise site geometry. Each block was pre-finished and installed one-by-one, guided by the formwork, which was removed after installation to reveal the flowing, sculptural shape of the desk.

The Hemlock used in this project was salvaged from structural testing beams — aged and weathered over time while stored outdoors. This resulted in a wide variety of tones and grain patterns across the blocks. All were oriented with the end grain facing the same direction, a subtle design move that speaks to the idea that a diverse community, aligned in purpose, can move forward together.