The project centres around the story of Chunee the elephant, brought and killed at a site near the Strand in the 1800s, and the site of this building. It responds to the site’s history of animal cruelty, attempting to encourage a changing relationship between humans and other species. The programme has three interconnected functions: a city habitat for endangered birds of the British Isles; an education centre and a research facility. The project attempts to address the need for a greater appreciation for design which is centred around the building’s full-time occupants, in this case the birds. Where Chunee was not given the appropriate space for his body, the birds will be seen as the main ‘client’ of the project.

From the cage design referenced from different elephant profiles to the terracotta tiles on the façade depicting arrangements of the same pattern, almost all decorative aspects revolve around the site’s forgotten history. Even the choice of materials, terracotta and red sandstone, are a nod to Chunee’s origins. The aim is to expose the story through repetitive motifs allowing the public to discover the history for themselves. Different ways of storytelling in architecture are referenced from Portuguese ceramics to ancient stone temples in India.