"I find again and again," says Steve Tompkins, arrived shivering from a site meeting at the Young Vic, "that theatre directors and actors want to work in non-theatrical spaces." This, you might think, is a bit of a poser for a young architect who has made his name designing theatres. Then again, Tompkins - one half of the architectural practice Haworth Tompkins - is much more fringe than West End. He cut his teeth on the intensely complex task of rebuilding the Royal Court theatre in Sloane Square. Stephen Daldry, then director there, saw in Tompkins the kind of promise he looked for in new playwrights.