ORCA Studios Transform a Disused Warehouse Into a Considered and Bold Padel Club

The project began with a question that shaped everything that followed. As Matt Constantinou, Founder and Director of ORCA Studios, explains: “Padel is inherently social — you can’t play it alone. So, the question was never just how we design the courts; it was how we design everything around them to foster a genuine sense of community.”

From the moment of arrival. A dramatic entrance feature — a bespoke hanging chain installation — sets the tone immediately, establishing the club as something beyond the ordinary. Members are then drawn through an immersive entrance tunnel, designed to build anticipation and evoke the adrenaline of competition before they play. These are not only decorative gestures, but they are also deliberate transitions, shifting the mindset of the visitor from the everyday into something more charged.

The aesthetic throughout is industrial refined — raw in its bones, considered in its execution. Textured wall finishes add depth and tactility, while curved detailing softens the warehouse volume, lending warmth to what might otherwise feel hard-edged. Soft furnishings with a considered and bold colour palette offer a richness to the space. Warm LED lighting unifies the club, creating an atmosphere that feels inviting throughout the day and into the night.

Across the ground floor, eight indoor courts sit alongside a pro shop, co-working space, recovery area, and members lounge bar — a programme designed not for a single type of visit, but for all of them. Whether a member arrives to play, to work, to eat, to meet, or simply to be part of the environment, the space accommodates them without compromise.

The mezzanine takes the experience further. Premium changing facilities and a recovery suite featuring ice baths serve the performance-focused member, while the panoramic sauna — positioned to look directly over the courts below — is perhaps the most quietly extraordinary space in the building. It is a room that rewards those who use it with a view of the sport in full flight; rest and play occupying the same sightline.

Throughout, ORCA embedded moments of discovery — easter eggs within the detail that reward the curious and give the space a layered quality that deepens with familiarity. The ambition was a destination that members return to not just for the padel, but for the experience of being there.

The result is a club where sport is the starting point, not the whole story — and where design is the thread that holds it all together.

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