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by Imran Jahn on Jun 1, 2026
I have been playing tennis for most of my life, and I have spent a good deal of it in clubhouses that did not quite work. The changing room you had to walk through to reach the bar. The single radiator losing its battle with January. The kettle everyone queued for and nobody owned. You love these places anyway, because the tennis and the people are what you came for. But you also notice, match after match, season after season, how much a building can either lift a club or quietly hold it back.
The new clubhouse for Sutton Churches Tennis Club, its cantilevered glulam roof and red standing seam fascia reaching out to shelter a terrace beside the courts. Designed by RISE Design Studio. Visuals: Gabriel Spera
That was the thought I carried into the new clubhouse for Sutton Churches Lawn Tennis Club. José Dengra and I have led the project together at RISE Design Studio, and in April 2026 it was granted planning permission by the London Borough of Sutton, with the full support of the council. I wanted to set down how we approached it, because the thinking applies to any club weighing up a building of its own.
A building that welcomes you before you reach the door
A clubhouse should start working before you are through the door. We set the building low into its site so it meets you at the level of the landscape, with an easy approach from Gander Green Lane and no steps to negotiate on the way in. A deep, overhanging roof then forms a sheltered outdoor room along the front, the sort of place you end up standing in with a coffee, watching the back end of someone else's match or waiting for a shower to pass over. Some of the best conversations at any club happen in exactly those few minutes before and after play, so we gave that moment a proper home rather than leaving it to a doormat and a bit of luck with the weather.
The floor plan, with the clubroom opening to the courts and the changing rooms set discreetly to one side, so the social space can be used on its own through the week
The game should be everywhere you look
Inside, the clubroom looks straight out onto the courts through full-height glazing, north facing so the light stays even and the glare stays off the play. I wanted every seat to have a view of the tennis, because watching is half of what a club is. A sheltered walkway runs along the courts for spectators, and on a warm evening the social space can open right up and spill outside.
Proportion, materiality and light are not luxuries to be saved for galleries and grand houses. A community building deserves the same care, and good design here costs far less than people assume when it is built into the scheme from the start rather than chased at the end. Beautiful architecture should be available to everyone who uses a place, not reserved for a select few, and a tennis club is as good a place as any to prove the point.
One decision I am especially fond of is also one of the simplest. We separated the changing rooms from the social space, so the clubroom can be used entirely on its own without anyone passing through towards the courts. That turns a tennis clubhouse into something a whole neighbourhood can borrow: coffee mornings, parent and baby groups, repair cafés, art classes, the local groups who currently have nowhere to meet. Sutton Churches has around 500 members of every age, and nearly half of its adults had never picked up a racket before they joined. A building that earns its keep seven days a week suits a club like that far better than one that only wakes up on a Saturday.
Long section through the building, from the sheltered external seating, across the full-height clubroom, to the changing rooms and loft storage beyond
Getting the hard things right
None of this works without the unglamorous discipline of coordination, and that is where José has led. A small pavilion still has to hold a great deal together: structure, services, ventilation, drainage, accessibility and a tight construction budget, all resolved early enough that the thing can actually be built to time and cost.
We chose a hybrid mass timber structure, with cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls and a glulam roof, partly for its low embodied carbon and partly because it is made off site to fine tolerances, which keeps the build quick and the costs predictable. That timber is left exposed inside, with a linear rooflight running down the centre of the clubroom to draw the sky into the space. The performance then sits quietly behind it: the AECB CarbonLite New Build standard, high insulation, airtight construction, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, an air source heat pump and rooftop solar, so the club's running costs fall to very little for decades. And because the floor was set to meet the ground, the building is step free from the first sketch rather than by way of a ramp added on later.
José puts it better than I can:
"A key part of the project has been coordinating a building that meets high environmental and accessibility standards while responding carefully to its context. By resolving structure, services and layout early on in the design process, we have ensured the scheme is efficient to build, sustainable, and well integrated into the surrounding urban fabric."
José Dengra, Senior Architect, RISE Design Studio
Existing and proposed street elevations, drawn by hand, showing how the new clubhouse and its overhanging roof sit between the courts and the neighbouring houses on Gander Green Lane.
What it means for the club
In the end, the only verdict that counts is the club's. Jackie Halls, who sits on the New Clubhouse Committee at Sutton Churches, has been part of this from the start:
"Our old clubhouse has become a real barrier and is holding the club back. RISE has designed something that will welcome everyone, players, families and the wider community for decades to come. The new clubhouse will be fully accessible, sustainable and fit for the future, while also being a beautifully designed building that reflects the ambitions of the club. We hope it will stand as an exemplar for what a modern community focused clubhouse can be. We can't wait to get started on the build!"
Jackie Halls, New Clubhouse Committee, Sutton Churches Tennis Club
With planning secured, the project now moves into contractor procurement. Construction is expected to begin in December 2026, with completion targeted for December 2027. I will be following this one closely, and not only as its architect.
Exploded structural axonometric of the hybrid mass timber frame: CLT walls, a glulam ridge and eaves beams, and the lattice of diagonal joists that gives the roof overhang its exposed structure.
Looking for an architect for a new tennis pavilion?
If your club is thinking about a new tennis pavilion or clubhouse, whether you are at the first kitchen-table conversation or already shaping a brief, I would be glad to talk it through. A community club deserves a building it can be proud of, and good design should never be the preserve of a lucky few. Please do get in touch.
Visuals: Gabriel Spera
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