Cactus Club Café: Coal Harbour

Project Desciption

Cactus Club’s flagship restaurant offers a spectacular Vancouver location to some 500 guests. Entry is from Jack Poole Plaza, home of the 2010 Winter Olympic Cauldron, and directly across from Vancouver’s Convention Centre West. Within, the restaurant opens to Coal Harbour, looking down to the docked seaplanes and across the water to Stanley Park and the North Shore Mountains.

The existing building is an irregular volume defined by sharp angles and topped by a green roof that is accessible to the public.

Assembledge+ was asked to develop the interior design. Materials were chosen to echo the natural materials of the west coast Canadian landscape, including Douglas Fir, natural stone, dark brown leather, and blackened steel. Irregularly shaped slate flooring was chosen to reinforce this palette and to mediate the angular building geometry.

Encompassing the entire space, a field of custom wood ceiling joists is purposefully articulated to echo the mountains beyond and reflect the terraced seating below. This provides a sense of continuity throughout the large volume while simultaneously producing intimate dining spaces.