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British Embassy, Warsaw, Poland

Set in its own grounds in a district of other embassies, the new building presents a calm and formal exterior to the outside world. On one side it faces a road, on the other, a mature park laid out with canals and alleys of trees. The building is explicit in its conservation of energy; its glass elevations function as the outer skin of a double façade, which provides substantial thermal insulation in winter and relieves heat in the summer. The outer façade is very plain and reflects the skies and trees around it, while the inner façade is more substantial, with blast-resisting windows set between piers and spandrels in a modulated composition.

The embassy is arranged over three floors. The ground floor provides a space for public exhibitions, a restaurant and bar. The grounds are laid out with lawns and paving for large public events, and smaller areas for informal gatherings.

A range of material finishes extends through the interior. Lifts and service cores are in marble. In the office, columns are covered in white plaster, and the windows set between them have mullions and spandrels in light-bronze anodised aluminium. With an acoustically absorbent ceiling, carpeted floor and double façade, the offices are places of calm and dignity.

Each floor has its own identity through its relations to the outside world. Public spaces in the ground floor flow from one to the other and into the grounds. Open office space in the first floor is given a degree of separation by the interior courts. In the ambassadors suite, offices have the small scale and fine quality of cabinets, a theme that continues in the small spaces for sitting that are defined by lines of thick hedge and planting related to the grounds around the embassy and the park beyond.

http://www.tonyfretton.com/warsaw.htm