Black timber pavilion gives south London cricket club a new home

A black wooden pavilion with a crisp white clock is now keeping watch over cricket on Dulwich Common in south London.

Andy Matthews Studio designed the building for Streatham & Marlborough Cricket Club, on the edge of the common overlooking the club's main pitch, according to Dezeen. It is hard to miss.

The shape is simple. The pavilion has a mono-pitch roof, meaning a roof that slopes in one direction only, and walls clad in black Japanese burnt larch, which is timber charred to protect it from weather. A round white clock sits high on the dark facade, a nod to the clocks found on older cricket grounds.

A pavilion, for anyone new to the game, is the clubhouse for cricket. Players change there, store their kit there and gather to watch the match. This one keeps that job but shrinks it. The new building is 100 square metres smaller than the structure it replaced.

Inside, the main form holds a multipurpose hall closed on two sides by full-height sliding glass doors. When the doors are open, the room flows straight outside. The clubroom looks both ways, with views of the main pitch and the secondary pitch, so supporters can follow play on either ground.

Shelter is part of the plan. A large canopy juts out over the doors to create a covered outdoor area for watching matches when the rain comes, as it often does in London.

For fans, this means more than a smarter place to get changed. The hall was designed as a flexible space that the club can rent out, giving Streatham & Marlborough an extra source of income beyond match days.

What makes this stand out is how much the small building is asked to do. It is a changing room, a viewing stand and a hire hall in one.

The project replaces an outdated 1950s building, according to the studio's project page. The studio says the design was developed in collaboration with the club. It was also a first for the architects, whose first new-build project it was, the practice said in a LinkedIn post. Southwark Council, the local authority for the area, approved the timber-clad design for the common, according to Archello.