Why we’re ASSEMBLYing in Strathcona
We’ve told you about the team. We’ve told you about the work. We’ve told you about the bikes. What we haven’t talked nearly enough about is where we actually live — and why, a year in, we’re more convinced than ever that the address is half the point.
CHDL is headquartered at Assembly in Strathcona, a development by fabric and Hudson Projects that was designed around a fairly ambitious idea: that working and living in the same community, in the same building, could create something greater than the sum of its parts. That phrase — borrowed directly from Aristotle and adopted as Assembly’s project moniker — isn’t just wall copy. It’s the thing we feel every time we walk in.
The space itself is 1,400 square feet of ground floor that we’ve turned into a modular studio and display environment that looks, depending on who’s visiting, either like a very serious creative agency or a contemporary art gallery. After hours it actually becomes the latter — SMoMA, our in-house gallery space, that currently features art by CHDL principal Sean Carter (hence Sean’s MOMA). Although not officially opened yet, there is a plan for the official gallery open later this year.
When we first saw the plans for Assembly, we weren’t actively looking for a space. But the design stopped us. A blank canvas with a framework built for creative expression — where the expectation was boldness, not beige. For a studio that spends its days pushing clients to embrace that same boldness, it felt like the right fit. And it has been.
Earlier this year, Scribe Communications came in to document the space and the thinking behind it for their SPACES series. It’s a good read if you want the full story on how we approached the build-out — and why the kitchen stone is a colour the manufacturer told us hadn’t sold in over 20 years.
Read the SPACES Feature: Carter Hales Design Lab at Assembly →
But here’s the thing about Assembly that no feature article can fully capture: it’s the neighbours.
Strathcona has always had a distinct energy — creative, independent, a little rough around the edges in the best possible way. Assembly was designed to extend that, not replace it. And the businesses that have taken up residence here reflect exactly that intention.
The newest, and frankly the one generating the most noise — sometimes literally, in the form of a line stretching down the corridor on a Saturday morning — is Peace and Culture Coffee.
If you haven’t been yet, here’s what you need to know: this is not a coffee shop you stumble into. People come from across the city, specifically, intentionally, and apparently with patience, because the line on weekends is real. Since opening in February, Peace and Culture has become one of Vancouver’s most talked-about destinations for specialty coffee and matcha.
What we appreciate most about having Peace and Culture as neighbours — beyond the obvious and significant benefit of excellent coffee steps from our studio — is what they represent. They built a concept that is thoughtful, precise, and uncompromising, in one of the most expensive cities in the country to run a small business. That takes the same kind of intentionality we try to bring to everything we do as a brand agency. We recognize that instinct.
That’s Assembly. That’s Strathcona. Businesses that mean it, in a building that was designed to hold them.
We still have our door open — literally and figuratively. If you want to come see the studio, meet the team, or just use the visit as an excuse to finally try Peace and Culture, we’re not going to stop you. We’d encourage it, actually.
Come find us. The coffee’s great and the art’s even better.
—The CHDL Team