Wick Park and Thames Christian School & Battersea Chapel reviewed in The Observer
November 2023
Renowned critic Rowan Moore has explored the "heft and high ideals" of our work at Wick Park and Thames Christian School & Battersea Chapel in his most recent article for the leading UK newspaper, writing that "Henley Halebrown’s bold new student housing and calm, airy secondary school and chapel typify its belief in making every detail sing."
He goes on to write that Wick Park has "special vim" and has "bodily coherence", in a scheme where "the planning is thoughtful, with all rooms facing outwards, and a sociable inner courtyard, its floor raised up a level to stop it being too deep, overlooked by corridors and shared kitchens."
He describes Thames Christian School as "a calm six-storey cuboid in pale brick, which holds its own next to a high railway embankment and large housing blocks from the 1960s and the present. Rhythms of large and small windows impart a sense of civic dignity: it has the mood of a town hall or a church, without being either."
Moore concludes that "'...the world is better for its [Henley Halebrown's] efforts. Both the Thames Christian School and the student housing could have been exercises in spreadsheet architecture, the arrangement of the required number of units in an efficient way. That they are not is due to the architects’ belief that buildings can still have character and impact."
The full article is available on The Observer website here.