A post room didn’t initially strike me as a terribly exciting assignment. I had visions of a very functional space somewhere in the bowels of a building, like in those film scenes where someone is given the lowliest job possible in a huge corporation, pushing round trolleys laden with mail. Naturally my preconceptions were all wrong. This was 199 Knightsbridge, after all, a luxury apartment block rather than offices. The post room was a richly finished polygonal space of almost religious intensity. A temple lined with veneered letter boxes centred on an altar. My mind kept wandering to the rickety pine table in the dowdy lobby of my South London block of flats, upon which, junk mail is messily strewn.

Architects: Squire & Partners