Brixton Recreation Centre

Brixton Recreation Centre is a sports and recreation complex with shops, designed in 1970 by a design team led by George Finch for Lambeth Borough Council, with Ove Arup and Partners as consultant engineers. Construction began in 1974 and was completed in 1985.

Structure and Materials

The building has a reinforced concrete frame with pre-cast and in-situ elements. It is clad in red brick with exposed concrete structural elements and stairs, blue brick paviors, and a copper-covered roof with copper dressings.

Layout

The building occupies an irregular plot of 0.46 hectares. Its principal elevation faces south onto Brixton Station Road, with Pope's Road to the east and Beehive Place to the west.

The main six-level range of the recreation centre stands to the east. A circulation atrium rises towards the rear, from the basement to the roof, providing access to and views into the various activity areas. The swimming pool is to the west and is linked internally via the main changing rooms at second-floor level. Between the main range and the pool are a first-floor-level walkway – the first of many planned in Brixton's redevelopment scheme – and a pedestrian ramp. Shop units, with basement storage, line the Brixton Station Road elevation at ground floor.

International House and an electricity substation stand adjoining to the north; neither are of special interest.

Exterior

The building consists of three principal elements: the main east range, the central entrance concourse, and the swimming pool hall to the west. Each section has a distinct appearance, and all are linked by common materials, architectural motifs and features.

The main range of the leisure centre is monumental and of brick. The blind upper storeys overhang the south elevation and are supported at second floor level by five narrow stilts, their upper halves tapering upwards to meet the heavily coffered soffit. A modern light box has been added on the left angle. A row of shops stands recessed from the stilts and is topped with a concrete band, forming the balustrade to a first floor terrace. The terrace meets a dog-leg fire-escape stair at the south-east corner, which has a chunky geometric concrete balustrade adjoining external walkways on the east elevation. The first-floor walkway meets a single-storey brick projection overhanging Pope's Road, supported by a colonnade of concrete posts. There are large windows on the ground floor lighting the bowls hall, and a strip on the projection above; the elevation is otherwise blind. Windows, which vary in proportion throughout, have narrow black metal frames. A second external stair cascades from fourth to first floor and turns onto the north elevation of the leisure centre, where it meets a second dog-leg stair rising the height of the building. The first stage of the low mansard roof rises behind the parapet, displaying the regular ribs of copper seams.

The pool, like the main range, overhangs the street, though it is cantilevered and so has no interruption in front of the ground-floor shop units. The soffit of the overhang, and the wall above it on the west elevation, have plastic light boxes set at slight inclines to create a wave-like form, which is illuminated at night. On the first-floor cantilever are eight square openings with recessed full-height glazing providing views between the first-floor swimming pool and elevated railway platforms on the opposite side of the road. Ribbed copper flashing forms a band framing the tops of the windows. The west elevation, blind but for door openings, has a large, irregular projecting plane of brick at the first floor. The saw-tooth roof with north lights is visible behind the parapet, which rises towards the rear of the building, terminating in a curve. There is a concrete fire-escape stair towards the rear.

Between the main range and the pool, the main entrance projects deeply onto Brixton Station Road; shop units continue on either side. Two flights of stairs rise from the east and west, parallel with the building line, and meet with a quarter-turn flight rising to a first-floor level walkway. There are terraces along the south front of the building, and from the central walkway, which passes between the main range and the pool, large windows light the internal entrance concourse on the right and the former cricket nets on the left. Brick volumes link the main range and the pool at second-floor level, bridging the walkway. There is a dog-leg stair on the left, adjacent to a brick block with a pitched glazed roof, the glazing bars of which echo the ribs of the copper roofs and flashings.

Interior

Internally, the materials of the exterior are carried through: red brick walls, brick paviors, concrete coffered ceilings, and ribbed glazing.

Entrance into the main range via the first floor walkway leads into a foyer area with modern fittings, which in turn leads to one of the principal features of the interior – the circulation atrium – which rises through six floors from the basement. Galleries and stairs surround the wide void and move in and out at each level. They have low brick balustrades topped with wide steel handrails, and there are troughs, now painted green, intended for planting. An escalator links the first and second floors, envisaged to be the most-trodden route. The atrium is lit from above by a pyramidal lantern supported on metal trusses. The atrium is the principal method of circulation, providing opportunities for spectating and access to all floors and most activity areas, and encouraging interaction between users. It has a climbing wall built into the south side of the fourth and fifth floors, and is open down to the double-height bowls hall in the basement. The bowls hall is studded with the posts of the structural frame, which form six lanes. Offices, toilets and changing rooms, a café, and lockers surround the green. The main changing rooms stand between the main range and the pool on the second floor; their fittings are not included in the listing.

The interiors of the individual activity areas within the main range are not of special interest, hence the listing extends to all open areas surrounding the atrium, including the foyer and bowls hall, and the glazed top-floor gallery.

A ramped pedestrian entrance passage leads from Brixton Station Road to the first-floor walkway. The passage has windows providing a view through the bowls hall. The first-floor entrance concourse passes from the front steps on Brixton Station Road, giving access to the main range of the sports centre, and with routes to the north and west intended to link up with the wider elevated walkway system planned for Brixton.

The double-height pool hall, at first floor level, has three pools: a main pool, a shallower adjoining pool, and a learner's pool separated from the main pool by a glazed screen. The saw-tooth roof is fully expressed, and it, and the upper walls of the hall, are clad in timber match-boarding. Galleries on either side of the hall provide spectator areas, and there is a sun deck on the east, enclosed within a pitched roof with a fully-glazed south side. Walls and other areas are brick, tile or brick paviors. There is a glazed bridge above the division between the shallow pool and the learner's pool. It is tiered and originally contained a restaurant, and is now a gym. Its terraced soffit has deep cross beams, painted white.

Exclusions from Listing

The modern light box on the left angle of the main range, modern fittings in the foyer, fittings in the main changing rooms, the interiors of individual activity areas within the main range where not forming part of the open space around the atrium, the shop unit interiors, and the storage and service areas beneath the swimming pool hall are not included in the listing. International House and the electricity substation are also excluded.