PAD studio’s first public building, a tennis pavilion in Southsea, Portsmouth, provides a versatile and airy community leisure facility that sits lightly in its parkland context, says Rob Wilson. Photography Nigel Ridgen, Richard Chivers
The site of PAD studio’s new tennis pavilion looks idyllic on a bright spring day, set in the green sward of Southsea Common that runs along the seafront of the town. The pavilion is surrounded by Victorian pleasure ground essentials: a walled rose garden, boating pool and municipal planting. To the west lies a perfectly level 200m lawn with tennis courts currently being prepared for the season.
But the nearby sheltering walls, trees and bushes are also indicative of the site’s relatively harsh environment – for both people and architecture. It is essentially an exposed coastal strip: often lashed by salty rain and sea breezes blowing off the Solent. It is beset too by vandalism that’s rife at night in this relatively unpoliced, unlit park. The previous tennis pavilion and a nearby bowls pavilion were constantly vandalised and ended up semi-derelict. (Even this new pavilion had a window smashed during construction.)This put added strain on maintenance of the Common, already suffering due to council cuts: with the bowling green already out of use and the tennis courts barely fit to play on.
It was against this background that a couple of wealthy locals set up Canoe Lake Leisure (CLL), together with John Cooke, now its chief executive, offering to run a tennis club utilising the tennis courts and the bowling green sites on a 25-year lease from the council.
This has resulted in 10 new grass courts, four all-weather artificial grass courts, two hard courts and a netball and basketball court. The old timber bowls pavilion has been converted into a café and a new tennis pavilion by PAD studio replaces the previous asbestos-ridden structure.
The project is one of those rare commodities today outside high-profile cultural or research projects: an act of philanthropy. Even rarer, it is modest philanthropy: not in the sums spent, of course – the new tennis pavilion alone cost £1.1 million – but in the duo’s wish to stay anonymous. All Cooke will divulge is that they are ‘tennis nuts’ (not surprisingly) whom Cooke taught in his previous role as a tennis coach. The level of support means the club doesn’t have to charge high fees to make a profit. Annual full membership is, at £150, half the average; while ‘social membership’ for people to enjoy access to the facilities and watch tennis is just £10. There is also a pay-on-the-day hourly rate of £4 available, while the netball and basketball courts are available for free to local teenagers.
What makes the arrangement particularly noteworthy is that the normal distinction between international-class facilities and public municipal ones does not apply. The grass courts – available for anyone to hire by the hour – have been resurfaced with 120 tonnes of loam and laser-levelled to international match standard, their surfaces some of the best in the country. As a result, half-way through the build in November 2016, the Lawn Tennis Association approached the club to hold a tournament on the new courts in June 2017: an event that acted as an intense deadline and baptism for the new facilities.
There is an energy and freshness to the architecture – and little doubt of its success as a new facility
PAD studio was appointed to the project in late 2014 after CLL had interviewed several practices selected direct from the Yellow Pages (PAD is based in Lymington, Hampshire). It is the practice’s first public project. The client’s key concept was to create a raised first-floor platform from which to watch tennis – from which the rest of the brief has seemingly grown by increments.
The local council, however, was resistant to any idea of a bulky two-storey structure on Southsea Common, a Conservation Area, so a lengthy planning process of pre-application and consultation with a design review panel followed. Through this process, PAD developed a building which broke down its two-storey form visually, with a heavy masonry base and lightweight steel pavilion element sitting above it, opening out onto a terrace. By keeping the main horizontal line of the building down to first-floor level – in contrast with the slim ‘butterfly’ roof plate above – its form sits lightly against the surrounding mature trees and hedges.
The design thus maintains a robust masonry face at ground floor level – appropriate given the vandalism. Yet it is a refined one, too, formed of long, skinny Petersen bricks, reflecting the relatively generous budget. Softly grey, their shape also further accents the horizontal nature of this ‘plinth’ element in the pavilion’s massing. However, the clients were also very clear they did not want to create a ‘fortress’, so large, glazed openings pierce this lower level – offering glimpses into and through the body of the building from the approach path. At night, these are protected by steel shutters, but perforated ones, so the building still exudes a warm glow when in use.
The building’s footprint cranks slightly in plan to offer its main entrance to the public path on its west. From this you enter a double-height reception lobby. To the left is a multi-functional plywood-lined space with kitchen. This has large, glazed sliding doors out onto the tennis courts, so can function in traditional sports clubhouse-mode for lunches and teas. It is also sized to accommodate a children’s mini-tennis red court, and can be hired out for classes and events, which have ranged from Zumba to council consultations. A corridor to the right also leads directly to the courts past male and female WCs with showers. Between them, a stair leads up to a bar area with viewing gallery, opening on to a terrace to the north. A strip of roofed, open terrace also runs along the south side.
The building was procured through a construction management contract preferred by the client, despite the increased risk, after problems arose with the traditional procurement route when converting the bowls pavilion into a café.
This led to what was clearly a very good collaborative relationship between contractor and design team. But it also allowed for late changes to the structure and the brief. The proposed concrete beams forming the first floor became an in-situ slab, which has been left exposed, though is rather mottled, having had to be resurfaced after the vibration of the casting left void-formers visible. Efflorescence is also a problem in the salty air. Among the changes, a planned office became the catering kitchen, which as a result is very tightly crammed with equipment in the domestic-scaled service rooms downstairs.
Overall the materials and finish are not quite as cleanly drawn as perhaps intended: everything is more visually busy than it feels it needs to be. Some of this is due to budget: in the ground-floor lobby large tiles replaced an exposed concrete floor. And above the more monolithic base, the mix of materials is a little too eclectic: galvanised steel, anodised aluminium and steel and Eternit tiles compete to form the pavilion structure, while the glass balustrades to the terrace preserve the view but look clunky.
But if the detailing and finish have been done with a broad brush, there is an energy and freshness to the architecture – and little doubt of its success as a new facility. Indeed the building looks in danger of being a victim of that success, its spaces already stretched to cope with the demand it has unleashed.
Construction management clearly led to a very good collaboration between contractor and design team
So, while it deftly answered the brief, the brief has grown. Traditionally pavilions were for changing, showers, storage of sports equipment – with catering amounting to, perhaps, a tea-urn. But now most players shower and change at home and things have flipped, with the pavilion necessarily needing to become a function and event space.
CLL’s target was to recruit 350 members over 10 years, but already there are 400 members, and the social membership alone has grown to 300. For every event hosted, three or four are being turned down. The store room meant for lawn mowers is now half-full of extra freezers for catering. Temporary sheds and marquees look to be on the horizon. With the first full summer season about to start, it feels on our visit a little like the calm before the storm for this small building.
Our compact (322m2) two-storey pavilion provides space for community events and classes, while maximising the site’s excellent vantage point with a first floor viewing gallery. It replaces the former clubhouse, which had suffered repeated vandalism and was unsafe for public use.
The building’s brick ground floor provides a robust base that is carved away to reveal views into the building through to the refurbished tennis courts beyond. The viewing gallery is set against mature trees and designed to be unobtrusive, transparent and delicate. A butterfly roof floats above the largely glazed first floor, reducing the building’s mass and creating covered outdoor seating with views of the courts, historic Southsea Common, and beyond.
The materials and structure have been designed to make the park feel safer at night and resistant to anti-social behaviour. All glazing at ground floor can be secured through sliding mesh shutters, which glide into recessed brick pockets; in the dark, the perforated finish makes the building glow from within, improving security along the public footpath. The interior is deliberately utilitarian and hard-wearing, softened with plywood lining, ash floors, a tactile cast concrete ceiling and colourful furnishings.
This being our first public building, we were keen to maintain the high quality of construction that private clients appreciate. A construction management procurement method enabled us to carefully select subcontractors and suppliers – local where possible – who brought exceptional added value to the project through expertise and high-quality workmanship. We have our trusting and forward-thinking client to thank for investing in this process.
Wendy Perring, director, PAD studio
Canoe Lake Leisure was formed to safeguard 12 natural tennis courts in a Grade II-listed public park. Two of the three directors finance the project and I manage it. With no experience in design or construction, we invested a significant amount of time exploring the various options and companies able to work in this unique situation.
PAD studio proved to be an excellent partner, providing invaluable advice at every stage of the process and demonstrating expertise regarding the relationships with the various contractors and project manager.
It was a very challenging project, due to the location of the pavilion. The landowner and planning authority (Portsmouth City Council) was understandably very protective of any green and recreational space being built on, so there were many criteria to be adhered to. The result is a contemporary structure successfully fulfilling its objectives of serving both the community and private members in an accessible and affordable manner. The design and construction have allowed us to use the pavilion for a huge variety of activities (offering a year-long £10 ‘social membership’ which ensures its affordability to all), while still ensuring that the tennis facilities are among the best in the country.
PAD studio was a pleasure to work with and showed enormous amounts of flexibility and versatility with this philanthropic venture. We are very proud of the pavilion and it has received unanimously positive feedback from the community and members.
John Cooke, chief executive, Canoe Lake Leisure
The project was first conceived as a load-bearing blockwork structure, supporting exposed precast planks at first floor level, with a lightweight steel frame pavilion on top. The essence of these early design decisions remains in the finished building.
On the ground floor we have used the blockwork walls to provide vertical support. The tight plan means that the wall positions are fixed and there is limited need for future flexibility in terms of their position. The linear nature of the walls facilitates simple strip foundations below a beam-and-block ground floor.
A concrete soffit was desired at first floor level for services, thermal mass and aesthetic reasons. The first floor was initially planned as high-quality lattice girder precast planks, an approach that also enabled us to use void-formers in the slabs to reduce weight and cope with the long spans of 9.4m.
Procurement of these planks proved to be difficult due to the scale of the project and we made the decision to switch the first floor construction to in-situ concrete, poured as a flat slab with the void-formers cast into the concrete. Reinforcement bar prevented the void-formers from floating during the wet concrete stage. It was a tricky pour on a small scale but was achieved well on site.
The roof of the pavilion has a thin edge profile and is supported by columns at that thin edge, rather than cantilevering beyond the supports, which would be the more typical arrangement.
There are some carefully designed steel details in the roof structure that enable the steel beams to reduce mid-span to accommodate this edge and to allow the central gutter to pass through the steelwork.
Toby Ronalds, director, Eckersley O’Callaghan
Rice Projects’ relationship with PAD studio has developed over several years following the completion, in 2016, of the RIBA Awards-shortlisted Lister Tower project, the renovation of a water tower in the New Forest, Hampshire.
Having been involved with private residential construction projects, the Canoe Lake Leisure Tennis Pavilion provided an opportunity to exploit the manifold benefits of construction management procurement – which we have been cultivating and refining over the past decade – on a slightly larger, more complex scale.
The perceived additional risk to the client over traditional procurement was counterbalanced by the close working relationship between John Cooke (client), PAD studio (architect), Eckersley O’Callaghan (engineer), Rice Projects (construction manager) and specialist trade contractors. Rice Projects was at the heart of these relationships, ensuring the design criteria were achievable and trade quotes realistic, thus reducing risk for all parties.
Changes in the first-floor structural design during construction illustrates the flexibility of this approach. These changes were incorporated with relatively little impact on programme and budget, which might have occurred in a traditional procurement approach as a result of the contractual bureaucracy of administering variations and agreeing valuations.
Instead, efforts were targeted towards the most effective resolution of the actual issue.
The single most valuable benefit of this procurement route is the bridge created between the design and construction teams, enabling a truly collaborative approach.
Although functionally part of the construction team, Rice Projects is in fact appointed as a consultant by the client, alongside the design team, thus omitting profit-driven prejudice and potential conflicts of interest.
An example of this collaborative approach was in the resolution of an external balustrade detail, requiring input from the architect, structural engineer, steel fabricator, bricklayer and roofer, ensuring that it was structurally sound, waterproof and finished correctly.
Edward Rice, project manager, Rice Projects
PAD studio places great importance on the tectonics and craft of architecture. Consequently, we seek to imbue and express this in all the projects that we work on.
The collaborative approach to this project and close links between the design team and trade contractors was instilled from conception to completion. There is a rawness to the form and material palette which is softened by internal finishes and the surrounding greenery. The long-format Petersen Kolumba facing brickwork to the ground floor serves to emphasise the horizontality of the elevation, while the flush mortar jointing adds texture.
From the outset, the desire was to create an expressive building, questioning the pavilion typology while responding to its wider urban context and parkland/seafront setting. The local planning authority was concerned that a two-storey building would be overbearing and intrusive. PAD studio’s approach was to conceive of a low-lying first-floor level, which would be visually unobtrusive and contrast with the robust and assertive ground floor.
An important element of the first floor is the slim gull-wing roof, which floats above the largely glazed viewing gallery underneath. A tremendous amount of research into the roof’s supporting steel frame and edge detail resulted in unsupported spans of 6m and a visible external roof edge of only 200mm in depth. Bespoke aluminium fins echo the verticality of the surrounding mature trees and create shadow on the first floor to further break down its mass.
Benjamin Munro, project architectural assistant, PAD studio
Start on site March 2016 Completion June 2017 Gross internal floor area 350m2 (ground floor: 250m2, first floor: 100m2) Construction cost £1.1 million Construction cost per m² £ 3,143 Architect PAD studio Client Canoe Lake Leisure Structural engineer Eckersley O’Callaghan M&E consultant Mesh Energy Quantity surveyor APS Associates Project manager Framptons Project Solutions Main contractor Rice Projects Procurement Construction management CAD software used Vectorworks Annual CO2 emissions 88kgCO2 eq/m²/yr
Tags PAD Studio Portsmouth Southsea tennis
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