Threefold Architects completes a sibling pair of structures in south-west London

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Charles Hosea

Two pavilions designed by Threefold Architects, situated at either end of a south London garden, draw material inspiration from the construction of the original house and bracket a new swimming pool, created as part of the same project.

The structures, with a combined gross internal floor area of 83 square metres, provide a gym close to the house and a separate pool house with changing facilities and a plant room, which satisfies the client’s desire to enter the pool while being sheltered from the rain.

The brief stipulated that the buildings should be in harmony with their setting in both form and materiality, and the architect proposed two “simple brick buildings with a shared architectural language”, connected by a stone path running along the garden’s northern boundary. At one end the gym pavilion “is anchored to the existing house creating a ‘cloistered’ relationship with a new south-west-facing terrace”, says the architect. “Opposite, the second pavilion echoes the horizontality of the pool, running counter to the towering mature trees that it nestles beneath”.

Zinc roofs oversail the monolithic masonry walls. On the underside of the roof, the zinc is ‘peeled back’ to reveal the oak structure and the sarking boards. Oak is also used for the gym floor and for the joinery, “adding warmth to the interiors and complementing the landscaping beyond”, notes the architect.

A combination of sliding glass panels and horizontal clerestories serve to both enclose the spaces between brick panels and roofs but also to open up the buildings to the landscape and the pool.

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