The project proposes an embassy that questions whether public space is truly designed for a public purpose, and how such spaces can better protect, represent, and communicate the interests of the people they aim to cater to.

The Embassy for the Stateless is based in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Westminster’s elite district of truth-finding which is centred around the practices of law and justice. The programme responds to key statistics which show that statelessness exponentially increases with rising geopolitical conflict and that the parameters defining statelessness are widening over time; ‘hot-desking’ co-working facilities and communal kitchens are woven through vertical forums, levelling the users and spaces to reject the hierarchical in favour of the communal. Pockets of refuge housing contradict the notion that embassies cater only to the needs of the diplomat; comfort and protection are provided to all the users the building represents in a sensitive and communal way.

The building aims to be a passage in the many different stories a stateless individual experience on their journey in search of refuge. Materials, façade treatments, and spatial organisation are used as design tools to retell one’s stateless truth at an individual level.