我们正站在一个小而明亮的大厅里，在一对沉重的木门和玻璃门的另一边，这扇门通向科学博物馆的主入口大厅。如果我们没有停下脚步，把自己的名字告诉左边一张桌子的工作人员，我们几乎不会注意到这个狭小的空间，因为我们径直走上台阶，进入了博物馆的大型新支持者“沙龙”。

The route to this spectacular space is visually simple and intuitive but that is only thanks to months of patient design development by the architects, Hat Projects, and their team. The parquet floor and white walls of the 8x8m lobby bely the fact that where we are standing was previously a forgotten bit of undercroft encrusted with bird droppings. It took careful interrogation of the brief and the construction of numerous models before they worked out how this dead end between two buildings could provide a seamless link to the new Smith Centre.

The situation was complicated by multiple level changes and by the fact that parts of the site were owned by Imperial College. By the time Hat was appointed through a competition, lengthy negotiations had resulted in a land swap. The university got an Edwardian Royal Mail office (where the Smith Centre was previously located) while the museum got the sorting office behind – or most of it: one bay was retained by Imperial, along with a chunk of the basement.

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