The Strand

"An abandoned Brutalist building in a historic location in central London is brought back to life through careful intervention. The building is stripped back to its raw concrete elements to create a minimalist, monumental ruin, before being sliced and perforated by perfectly detailed design elements. A Diagonal volume slopes through the entire site to create courtyard hub, linking the ruins of a Roman bath below the building through to an underground garden (at the level of the former palace on the site), through a lobby and circulation space, all the way to a window on the sky. Anywhere the diagonal shape intersects with the existing site, public spaces are created. A derelict building is given the gravity of a classical ruin, and the single angled slash through the building is a spatial journey through the history and future of the site."