Thames Christian School and Battersea Chapel
by Henley Halebrown
Client Thames Christian School and Battersea Chapel
Award RIBA London Award 2024 and RIBA National Award 2024
A massive, brick cuboid sits quietly on the edge of South London’s Winstanley Estate. Large inner city housing blocks and the Clapham Junction railway tracks are its immediate, more raucous, neighbours. The new building is enigmatic, both part of the city yet apart from it. In its pale grey, tailored raiment, it has an air of a distinguished, benevolent onlooker.
Responding to the brief of school and chapel, the architects have created a fascinating typology in which each contributes to the overall form yet operates separately, each façade playing its part.
The school is entered from the south via a modest courtyard, while to the east the chapel façade breaks out from the building line above onto a small park in a beautiful play of forms. Deep courtyards enable naturally ventilated dual aspect classrooms, enhancing the wellbeing of the school’s 400 students, almost half of whom have special educational needs.
Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal.
Contractor Midgard
Executive Architect HLM Architects
Masterplanner HTA Design
Structural Engineer Pell Frischmann
Environmental / M&E Engineer Desco
Planning Consultant Montagu Evans
Landscape Architect Farrer Huxley
Acoustic Engineer AF Acoustics
Building Control MLM Group
Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant Martin Arnold
Gross internal area in m² 5175
