A plant-filled stack of timber beams forms the reception desk of an environmental association’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Texan studio Logan Johnson Architecture designed the lobby for American company The Sierra Club.

Native Californian plants grow in hollowed-out grooves in the reclaimed fir desk, while ribbons of light glow through the cracks between each beam.

Behind the desk, pixelated images of the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains decorate the walls.

Some other unusual reception desks on Dezeen include one made from stacked planes of marble and another that is bright red and integrates a bench.

Photography is by Matthew Johnson.

The following text came from Logan Johnson Architecture:

SierraSpace is a new reception space for the Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco. The project references two primary images in the Sierra Club's history: the Sierra Nevada Mountains, namesake of the Club, and the idea of a felled log becoming a new kind of ecosystem that helps to create vibrant ecologies. We designed the lobby desk using reclaimed Douglas Fir timbers into which we inserted native Northern California plants, meant to evoke the way ferns and mosses take over logs after they have fallen.  We embedded LED ribbons in the logs to illuminate the reveals and cracks.  The mural behind the lobby desk is a pixellated image of the Yosemite Valley, one of Sierra Club founder John Muir's favorite places.

For the original design, we had abstracted a topographic map of the mountains into a heightfield that becomes a canopy in which to place lights, mechanical and other services—to be constructed out of reclaimed Douglas Fir.  The wall behind the reclaimed Douglas Fir lobby desk is a pixellated face of John Muir, lit from behind using LED lighting.

Status: Completion October 2011
Client: Sierra Club
Location: San Francisco, CA
Site: Reception Lobby for Sierra Club Headquarters in Downtown San Francisco.
Design Team: Matthew Johnson, Jason Logan, Josh Robbins
Contractor: RN Field