Mark Henley/Panos Pictures

A display area showing planned works for the Strategic Heritage Plan, a US$878 million (GBP 678 million) project to renovate and modernise the UN's European headquarters, around the Palais des Nations, which dates principally from 1932 when it was built for the soon to be defunct League of Nations. The present space for 2,800 staff, will rise to 3,500 once work completed, partly by adapting to an already discredited ‘hot-desking' system, as in place in New York. The project, with half the budget going in mechanical plumbing and electricity (over 1700 km of wiring), involves the removal of seven floors of one building, due to asbestos, and the construction of a completely new glass-faced structure, that will hold 1400 work stations. Many of the site's 34 conference rooms, which host 10,000 plus meetings a year, will also be renovated. The project is already behind schedule, and internal audits point to series deficiencies in the SHP's operating procedures.