The site is a government building, parallelogram-shaped and five stories high; the parallelogram is converted into a rectangle by walled triangular plazas on either end of the building. The back of the building is an arcade that faces a park; the front, and the sides, are on city sidewalks.

The proposal digs a hole around the block of the building, and turns it into an island.

A cut is made around the building, along the front and sides, twelve feet wide and six feet deep. Under the building, a mirror slants out at a forty-five degree angle; six steps descend from the sidewalk to meet the mirror. The cut is interrupted by walkways into the plazas and through the building, and by trees on the sidewalk: the paved areas around trees extend six feet across the cut, like promontories. The steps bring the sidewalk down into the ground, as if into a well: the one-foot-wide treads are concrete, like the sidewalk, or granite, like the floor of the building entrance. The risers, and the walls of the stairwell, are glass block lit from within.

The slanted mirror, below the building, reflects the sky and people passing by on the sidewalk. The building is rid of its government armor, and opened to its surroundings: people walk down into the stairwell and sit and gather over the steps – the face-to-face reflections make a cocoon of intimacy. The mirror draws the sky, and people, under the building and into it; they become part of the building and undermine it. At night, the stairwell is turned into a sea of light that the building floats on.