Profumo House is a new-build 1200sqm office and community building for Toynbee Hall – an East London charity tackling poverty and social injustice. The building, together with significant improvements to neighbouring open space, will enhance the charity’s physical and community presence in Aldgate on the edge of the City of London. A five storey composition of layered forms mediates between the gothic character of the Victorian Toynbee Hall and the robust urban grain of Commercial Street. An asymmetric ground floor colonnade makes contemporary reference to the original entrance to Toynbee Hall which was bombed in WWII, and is clad in decorative tiles echoing traditional Victorian architecture. The building’s solid brick skin gives weight to the lower part of the building housing the charity’s community spaces, while offices are arranged above. The envelope is given further richness through the use of brick patterning and polished concrete profiles, coloured to match the brickwork.