Water first. A pool the length of a room, holding the ceiling on its surface. A staircase curves above it, in no particular hurry to arrive anywhere.

Read in isolation, this could be a hotel, a gallery, a members’ club. It is none of these.

A place built for waiting, inside a building built for movement.

Beyond the walls, everything is in motion. Gates, screens, departures. Here, the brief is the opposite: slow the hour down. I wanted the tension between the two.

I stayed with the materials. Dark water, timber, leather, polished steel holding the light. The frames came slowly, the way the room asks you to move.

Only later did I turn to the context. The hall. The signs. The yellow bear beneath its lamp. The reminder that all of this stillness sits a few minutes from the gates.