A new clubhouse for Elmwood Lawn Tennis Club

How hempcrete, a standing-seam zinc roof and CLT prefabrication shape a low-energy clubhouse in Kensal Rise.

Tennis clubs across London and the home counties tend to hit the same problem: the clubhouse is tired, but rebuilding it usually means shutting down the heart of the club for a year or more. At Elmwood Lawn Tennis Club in Kensal Rise, the proposed clubhouse is an attempt to answer both halves of that at once, a warmer, far more efficient building that can also go up quickly and with little disruption.

The way it's built is the point. Hempcrete walls, a standing-seam zinc roof and a prefabricated CLT frame let it deliver low-disruption construction, much lower running energy, and natural materials that age well, in a building that sits comfortably among the courts and trees rather than dominating them.

The proposed Elmwood clubhouse: hempcrete walls and a pale standing-seam zinc roof, with a projecting canopy over the café terrace. RISE Design Studio.

A building shaped by its setting

The design takes its cue from the classic British sports pavilion, low, honest and timber-framed, but gives it a contemporary form. The roof is a long pitch broken by a row of rooflights that catch the changing light through the day, and the materials are chosen to sit with the gardens and courts around it. The café opens out under a wide projecting canopy, the shaded terrace gives spectators somewhere to linger, and the building settles into the tree line rather than competing with it. It's deliberately modest. A good community building doesn't need to announce itself, it needs to work.

Hempcrete walls

The wall material kept coming back to hempcrete, for practical reasons rather than novelty.

It's good at regulating temperature, so the building stays cool in summer and warm in winter and copes with the swing between quiet mornings and busy afternoons. It breathes, absorbing and releasing moisture in a way blockwork doesn't, which suits changing rooms, showers and heavily used social spaces. Its embodied carbon is very low: hemp absorbs CO₂ as it grows, and combined with lime, hempcrete is one of the few wall materials that can come close to carbon-neutral, or even net-negative, once that sequestered carbon is counted. It softens sound, which keeps a busy clubroom to a comfortable hum. And it has a textured, hand-finished surface that feels made rather than manufactured.

A standing-seam zinc roof

The roof is one of the defining parts of the scheme: pale standing-seam zinc, pitched and broken by a run of sawtooth rooflights along the ridge. Zinc earns its place for solid reasons. It lasts a long time, routinely 80 to 100 years, which matters for a building meant to serve the next generation of members. It needs little maintenance, which suits a volunteer-run club. It's fully recyclable. It's light, so it sits easily on a timber structure. And its soft, pale finish sits quietly against the sky and trees rather than standing out.

The sawtooth form isn't only about looks. Angling the rooflights lets even, north-side daylight down into the clubroom while keeping direct summer sun and glare off the glass, so the room stays bright without overheating.

CLT, prefabricated off site

Speed is the other half of the brief. Most clubs can live with a few months of disruption, but not a year, so the structure is cross-laminated timber, prefabricated in panels off site.

That brings several advantages on a project like this. The panels arrive as complete sections, so the building starts taking shape within the first week. The process is quieter and cleaner than conventional construction, with fewer deliveries, fewer trades and far less dust, which matters in a residential area like Kensal Rise. The factory precision gives tight airtightness and strong thermal performance, because there are fewer gaps and errors than site-based work tends to produce. The shorter build compresses the time the club spends in hired cabins, which keeps coaching and events running and keeps costs down. And the exposed CLT gives the clubroom a warm, tactile interior without any added finish.

Spaces built around club life

The proposals are as much about how the club actually uses the building as about materials and speed. The clubroom has bi-folding doors that open straight onto a south-facing terrace, and a flexible layout that takes events of sixty to a hundred people. A café-bar serves both indoor seating and covered tables outside. The sawtooth rooflights bring daylight deep into the room through the day. A heritage entrance hall carries the honour boards and archive photographs that hold the club's history. The changing rooms use robust, breathable materials. Throughout, there are clear views to the courts, so social life and play overlap, and the landscaping carries members from the gate to the terrace in one continuous move.

The aim is a building that feels intuitive and welcoming: somewhere children read their names on the honour boards, older members swap stories on summer evenings, and the ordinary rituals of a tennis club have a proper home.

A model other clubs could follow

Clubs from Surrey to Hertfordshire to Buckinghamshire face the same pressures: ageing buildings, rising energy costs, and members who expect more from the facilities. Elmwood points to one way through. Low-energy performance brings running costs down, low-carbon materials cut the environmental impact, prefabrication shortens the build, natural finishes make for calmer spaces, and durable materials push the building's life out to the next generation. It isn't only a replacement clubhouse, it's a fairly repeatable way for clubs in the region to build better, and faster.

If you're thinking about upgrading your club's facilities, in London or the home counties, we'd be glad to talk through what a low-energy, fast-build approach could do for your site.

→ Email us at architects@risedesignstudio.co.uk
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