New Scotland Yard

New Scotland Yard is a return to the Met’s William Curtis Green-designed building on Victoria Embankment, part of a strategy to rationalise the force’s estate and shake up its working culture. The building was originally built as an annexe to the latter to house the force’s technology departments, but it had stood empty since 2011. AHMM won the job to bring it back into police use in October 2013 in a RIBA-run contest. 

The scheme consists of four main elements: a new glass-fronted pavilion; another pavilion at the top of the building with views over London; a new wing at the side of the building to add symmetry; and an extension to the rear elevation to increase the floor space.

To the rear, the building is clad in fins bearing colours sampled from surrounding buildings. Orange-red tones of brickwork combine with yellowish stone colours of the nearby parliament buildings to create a privacy veil along the back of the building where the façade sits just a few metres away from the adjacent block.

A flexible office environment has been created to facilitate collaboration and interaction. The rooftop extension provides multi-use conference space and terraces and is illuminated to give presence at night, symbolising the 24/7 nature of the building along with its civic purpose. A brick ‘carpet’ in the landscape outside the entrance references the distinctive striped brickwork of the neighbouring Norman Shaw North building

Building engineers maximised floor-to-ceiling heights and installed a new west-facing glazed façade with architectural shading, which brings daylight into the interior. The new pavilion atop the building provides space for meetings and activities.