A visitor centre in a harbour ticket office
A former harbour ticket office rebuilt as a visitor centre, with a 6 m map table and an exhibition wall two people can change in an afternoon.
Visit Port Calder
·
Harbour Visitor Centre (permanent)
·
Port Calder
2025
Floor area
140 m²
Footprint
10 × 14 m
Open sides
Row · 1 open side
Service
Brand environments
Days on site
18
Went on to another job
34%
The city’s tourism board took over the old harbour ticket office and wanted it open as a visitor centre seven days a week. It needed an information desk, something to draw people in from the quay, and an exhibition that changes every season without closing the building.
The centrepiece is a 6 m table carved from layered birch plywood on our CNC routers, showing the harbour, the old town and the coast walks in relief. Visitors lean on it, point at it and plan their day around it.
The information desk is faced in hardwood reclaimed from the harbour’s old pier, which the city had in storage. It’s topped in linoleum so it can take daily cleaning.
Along the long wall, printed aluminium panels hang on a steel rail. Two people with a step ladder can swap the whole exhibition in an afternoon, and we left a set of spare fixings behind the desk.
We installed over 18 days in three phases, so part of the building could keep selling ferry tickets throughout.
Reclaimed pier hardwood Layered birch plywood Linoleum desk tops Powder-coated steel rail system Printed aluminium panels LED track lighting
We change the exhibition wall every season with two people and a step ladder. That was the brief, and it works.
Tomas Aldred-Vey, Visitor Services Manager, Visit Port Calder