A new timber-frame cafe building for a spectacular site in Mountsfield Park, South London. Working in collaboration with the team behind the existing cafe our design together with their commercial submission has been selected by the London Borough of Lewisham following a call for tenders to design, build and operate a permanent cafe building on the site. The scheme was scheduled to be submitted for planning approval in March 2022 with construction due to begin later in the year.

Taking on board the client’s experience of working on the site, their ethos, priorities and budgetary constraints, we developed a design with a refined simplicity.

Responding to the pitched roof of the offices and refreshment room structure that occupied the site until 1981, our proposal uses a pitched roof to give the building identity and presence on site whilst offering light and volume to the interior.  The positioning of the cafe on site responds to the existing oak tree. Materially the proposed cafe is predominantly of timber construction with an expressed glulam timber portal frame. It is clad in coloured wooden shingles which give the building its lively identity. More on the Cafe here.