John Pawson

From the beginning I approached the design as an exercise in re-tuning. I didn’t want to fight the building – to bend it to my will. I’ve arranged the new programme like an opencast mine around the central atrium, with the atrium framing the views to the original concrete roof. I like the fact that everywhere you are, there are sightlines connecting you with other areas of the museum

Having more space opens up so many new opportunities in terms of the programme, but for me the crucial thing was to get the atmosphere right: serene, but also charged with the sort of underlying spatial excitement. You want to make a place that people feel good to be in and where the focus falls naturally on the installations.

Reinier de Graaf

OMA partner leading the project

What is interesting here, is that in an age where there are precious few public subsidies, that we managed to save a listed building, have a major cultural institution open to the public free of charge and have a community that is not gated and is a public part of a public park. That's an impressive achievement in the context of a public sector which on the whole is so passive and has relegated all the initiative to the market.

It was an arranged marriage between housing and a museum – but the two elements were the only way the whole project was going to get planning approval. A quicksand of multiple ingredients created an environment where it could happen. I’m very proud of the deal, and the choreography of making it happen over eight years. And I’m proud of the fact we worked successfully with so many people.

Even among the architects it was a very complex choreography that came together and created something. Had OMA been the sole architect, clearly things would have been done differently, but in a way I kind of prefer this. Because in the world of architecture, collegial collaboration is not something you hear about a lot. It’s an egomaniacal profession, so i’m very happy about the broadness of this project.

Simon Fraser

Allies and Morrison partner

The big challenge for us was we had to satisfy English Heritage and the borough of Kensington and Chelsea that actually we were retaining as much as we could of the original building, including the character, while conforming to the needs for a contemporary museum. Even though the glass facades and the brick had to come down in the end, there are still moments inside now – such as some of the original stained glass and marble – that means the old building still has a presence. And the roof itself is the most significant aspect of that. Retaining it was an extraordinary feat of engineering, and credit goes to Arup and Mace in delivering that. Along with the roof we did a massive basement excavation, which is very disruptive, so the phasing of construction around those things while still protecting the heritage aspect was essential to getting the project right.

Deyan Sudjic

Design Museum director

We’re continuing to explore what this move actually means and we’re just realising the scale of the transformation from Shad Thames to here. With that has come the sense of excitement, and of understanding just how complicated a building is. We’re now expecting an audience of around 650,000 people a year, as opposed to the 250,000 we had in Shad Thames. We've got a building with three times the space and we’ve increased our budget so we’ll be operating on about £11m a year, as opposed to the £5m before. It’s growing on all fronts.

I’m sure it’s going to succeed. I can feel it in the building. I’ve always thought design is too important just to leave to designers, and I think we’re trying to demonstrate that. Ultimately, we see design as borderless. Opening a museum is a very optimistic thing. We are open to the world and design is a way to understand the world.