A Grade 2 listed building directly opposite the British Museum. The design establishes a comfortable, safe and accessible workplace that embraces the former publishing house’s eccentricity. Souvenir Press balances the disparate historic forms from across the building’s life, including French Renaissance, Victorian Gothic, 20th Century pragmatism and those of contemporary technologies. It involved reversing unsympathetic alterations, reinstating and restoring the historic shopfront and facade, improving the building’s environmental performance, developing a new fire strategy to remove the fire lobbies found in every room, introducing a new lift shaft, stairwell, modern services and joinery throughout, redoing the basement which was riddled with damp, and designing for a later phase to include a roof extension. We adhered to best practice in restoring past features, but used the new layer of furnishings and services to subvert expectations of conservation architecture. By obscuring the past and muddying our relationship with it, we created a layered building that joyfully draws together diverse historic sensibilities with the demands of modern life.