Herzog & de Meuron will renovate the Liverpool Street station in London, transforming it into a modern transportation hub and adding two structures: a 6-story hotel of 190,000 square feet, and a 10-story structure for office space of 840,000 square feet. These additions have already been scaled back and subjected to a number of amendments.

As for mobility, however, the new project aims to make the Victorian station fully accessible and to allow it to better accommodate the 135 million people who use it every year. Because of that, the size of the project has been doubled to 98,350 square feet, in order to increase circulation space; also the number of lifts has also increased from one to seven; while the access to the Tube’s platforms has been revamped to provide step-free access.

The proposal is currently undergoing its first round of public consultation, but the new interventions have already attracted criticism from some of the conservative groups of architectural heritage.