Merton College Sports Pavilion

This sports pavilion was built in 1966, designed by Michael GD Dixey working with Richard Sudell and Partners. The landscape assistant was DW Breeze, structural engineers were GKN Reinforcements Ltd, and the general contractor was Marshall Andrew and Co Ltd. The project cost £87,615.

Construction and Materials

The building has a reinforced concrete frame with hollow walls clad externally in dark grey brick and internally in light grey facing brick. External paving uses dark grey paviors and quarry tiles, with the same materials continuing inside for floors and skirtings. British Columbian pine is used consistently throughout for stairs, doors and architraves, glazed screens and sliding windows, changing room fittings and seating, the bar counter and soffit. The main staircase has afrormosia wood treads. The pavilion retains its original aluminium window units and roof lights, though rear windows have been replaced with steel or anodised aluminium frames.

Layout

The two-storey pavilion is rectangular in plan and set on a shallow plinth. It overlooks playing fields to the south and east, with the entrance to the north. The core of the building is a double-height, full-width clubroom with a first-floor gallery running around all four sides. Men's changing rooms occupy the ground floor on the east side, with women's changing rooms above. The western three bays contain a bar and kitchen on the ground floor with a caretaker's flat above, reached by a separate stair.

The first-floor gallery opens onto an upper terrace overlooking the sports field on the south and east elevations. This terrace is also accessible via an external stair at the east end. To the north stand two squash courts, linked to the main building by a glazed bridge at first-floor level.

The building was designed to be viewed from all directions. It is framed by birch trees planted during construction and by moss-clad boulders. The setting is within open playing fields, close to St Catherine's College.

Structure

The building features an exposed, finely board-marked concrete frame with fair-faced floor slab soffits. On the upper floor and on the blank east and west elevations, facing brick sits flush with the frame. On the south and north elevations, the structural bays are expressed through projecting concrete piers placed at three-metre centres (echoing St Catherine's College) and lintels. These lintels carry the first-floor external terrace to the south and provide a shallow covered walkway to the north. To the south, the roof slab projects over the upper terrace.

On the east elevation, the floor slabs project beyond the building's core, supported on full-height outer posts. This creates a continuation of the external first-floor terrace, which at the south-east corner remains open beyond the later enclosed gym space. On the west elevation, the ground floor is set back by one bay beneath the caretaker's flat, with stairs enclosed by a glazed lobby rising to the first floor. The rear north wall of the entrance bay and clubroom has been rebuilt in brick similar to the original, replacing what were formerly full-height windows.

Exterior

This is a geometrically precise building with careful detailing and high-quality materials throughout. The south elevation is treated as a unified composition. The upper terrace, which has a horizontal timber balustrade, runs the full length of the building and wraps around the pivotal south-east corner to the east elevation. The lower level of the clubroom is lit by full-height south-facing timber sliding door units.

To the east, and similarly on the north elevation, the brick wall of the ground-floor changing rooms has clerestorey glazing with upper ventilation panels. To the west, entrances to the bar, kitchens and flat have pine vertically-panelled doors or ledge-and-braced doors. On the first floor, the upper level of the clubroom has full-height sliding door units with continuous clerestorey ventilation above, opening onto the terrace. The originally external (now internal) south wall of the first-floor changing rooms is treated similarly to the equivalent ground-floor walls, with the new enclosing wall observing the original brickwork.

The caretaker's flat, occupying the three western bays, retains most components of its original pine window frames. The stair against the west elevation has pine treads and balustrades and is enclosed in a partly-glazed pine-framed lobby. On the east elevation, sculptural external stairs rising to the terrace have a steel frame and timber treads supported on a concrete spine beam. On both levels, vertically-panelled pine doors with vertical glazed lights open onto or beneath the terrace.

The main north entrance has a pair of vertically-panelled doors flanked to the left by a replacement casement window. Beneath the bridge, the entrance to the clubroom retains its original configuration of doors flanked by full-height margin lights. On both floors the clubroom windows have been replaced with steel or aluminium units. Anodised aluminium or steel window units and spandrel panels, all in matt brown, wrap around the north-west corner, set back slightly from the angle. Similar windows light the glazed bridge.

The pavilion sits on a shallow concrete slab clad in concrete slabs, which extends beyond the building. The extent of the building itself, beneath the protective canopy of the floor slabs, is reflected in a slightly raking platform of grey paviors which match the colour of the brick walls.

Interior

The internal frame, floor slabs and masonry balustrade to the clubroom gallery are in board-marked or polished concrete. Internal walls of the lobby and clubroom are faced in light grey brick with flush skirtings in darker grey brick. The lobby floor is in grey paviors; the clubroom has a timber floor laid over the original paviors. The main stair has afrormosia treads supported on a concrete spine beam and British Columbian pine balustrades on steel posts fixed to the treads. The ceiling is clad in pine slats.

The clubroom is a striking internal space and the most important room architecturally. It fills the width of the building and was originally glazed on both sides, giving the room a transparency enhanced by closely matched floor surfaces inside and outside the building. Also top-lit and overlooked by the gallery, it has a sense of space uncommon in a sports building. A partly-glazed pine screen and doors separate it from the lobby, while upstairs similar doors open onto the now-enclosed section of terrace that was formerly external.

Against the west wall of the lower level, the bar has a pine counter and soffit. The ceiling is of interlocking pine slats fixed to the concrete frame. Ventilation panels have hinged pine shutters. As outside, the soft grey colour and texture of the brick and exposed concrete contrast with the rich brown colour and texture of the pine. Hard-wearing afrormosia is reserved for the stair treads. Double doors lead onto the bridges, which like the lobby have pine-clad ceilings. Throughout the building many doors and windows retain their original furniture.

A similar palette is used in the changing areas—a functional zone carefully detailed in contrasting materials. Walls are clad in more practical light grey glazed brick and floors have dark grey quarry tiles. Doors are flush pine in pine frames beneath overlights or flush panels. Changing rooms on both floors have slatted pine seating supported on brick piers, hinged pine shutters over ventilation panels, and pine battens for hooks.

Squash Court

To the north of the main pavilion, and seen first on arrival, is a rectangular flat-roofed brick-built squash court, also in dark grey brick. It is a windowless geometric form, the two halves divided on the south side by entrances at both levels and on the north by a full-height stair window. Internally it is laid out with a court to each side of a central stair and gallery which opens onto the connecting bridge. It sits on turf flanked by trees.

To the west, originally a single-range flat-roofed garage or store, later extended, in similar dark grey brick. Pursuant to section 1(5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, it is declared that these aforementioned buildings, namely the garages and stores, are not of special architectural or historic interest.