Compared to the huge Lottery-funded arts projects of yesteryear, this is a tiny thing. It is no Tate Modern. It is no British Museum Great Court. Its cost comes in single millions rather than hundreds of millions. But it is confidently handled, and it makes a positive difference to the whole feel of this neglected area. It needs to, for right next to the Hayward is a telling memento mori: the erstwhile Museum of the Moving Image. The sad, fading, grimy hulk of this once glittering South Bank cultural magnet, closed now for years, makes much the same urban contribution as a grafitti-covered boarded-up corner shop. It makes you want to go elsewhere.

The Hayward's director, Susan Brades, seems to have got tired of the cultural blight involved in waiting for the arrival of the South Bank New Jerusalem. So she has bustled around, seen what's possible and what's not, and commendably gone for the possible. Which in her case has meant employing Graham, the celebrated American artist of poignantly minimalist glass enclosures, with fast-rising young architects Haworth Tompkins, to make the Hayward's architecture a bit more welcoming, not to say useful, in the 21st century. Haworth Tompkins are known for their theatres - the ingenious revamp of London's legendary Royal Court prime among them - but this is their first big visual arts job.