This project in Hackney demonstrates how project possibilities can evolve over time as the social and planning context of a site changes. Our initial brief was straightforward – to add eight further residential units – but was as much about restoring the building’s visual confidence as it was about the creation of new space. This initial iteration, now superseded by a new scheme, reinstated the strong rhythm of the masonry façade of the building – a former cardboard box factory built in the 1920s – through an intervention at third and fourth floor levels. The more lightweight, yet robust, materials of the addition were chosen to feel honest and familiar, our hope being that the building would weather its second century better than its first.