What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

Theis + Khan

Multi-award winning architectural practice in Tunbridge Wells

02/04/2026

A church shaped like a scroll.

A look at how we developed St Thomas’, Watford: a mixed-use project combining church, community spaces and new homes. The form takes its cue from Watford’s paper-making history: a ribbon of wall that begins at the garden, threads through the café and church, then rises and curls to form the worship space.

Twelve small coloured windows sit within the scroll — twelve apostles — casting shafts of light across the interior. The altar below is lit from above by a large rooflight.

The images here are the project in motion. Early lines, working models, drawings and renderings, all ways of asking the same questions: how does the scroll turn, where does the light land, and how does the building subtly become a landmark?

designprocess

24/03/2026

We love the quiet nostalgia of train stations.

When we were asked to restore and refurbish Bat & Ball Station in Sevenoaks, the aim was simple: retain its Victorian character, but make the building useful again — not as a museum piece, but as a working place for the town.

Bat & Ball opened in 1862 as Sevenoaks’ first station, originally known simply as “Sevenoaks”. As the rail network expanded and names shifted, it became “Sevenoaks Bat & Ball”, named after the local inn, and eventually just Bat & Ball. By 1992 the station building was de-staffed and boarded up — the trains continued to run, but the rooms that once made the station feel civic were closed.

Sevenoaks Town Council took on the building on a long lease and asked us to bring it back into public use as part of a wider plan to regenerate northern Sevenoaks. Our brief was to create a café, community rooms, and new internal, external and fully accessible WCs, while keeping the station’s original atmosphere.

The building itself gave us our starting point: the ticket windows and counters, the architraves, the proportions of the waiting rooms. The work was a careful balance — repair where possible, new where necessary — with services renewed throughout and lighting, heating and fittings chosen to sit quietly alongside the original detailing. Timber panelling echoes the historic language and gives scale to the lofty rooms, creating a robust setting for daily use. The deep green joinery and painted elements draw on the station’s original palette and help stitch old and new together — giving the rooms warmth and a recognisable “railway” character without tipping into pastiche.

A station building reopened — familiar, practical, and part of the town again. Swipe to see the transformation, and how the station used to look.

HeritageArchitecture

22/03/2026

Sunday sketch ✍️

Where it ended, and where it began: Coach House, Tunbridge Wells.

The two sketches here are about re-setting the composition: taking a brick 19th-century coach house that had ended up addressing the wrong direction, and giving it a new counterpart — a simple barn form — to make an outdoor room and turn the house back out to the landscape.

Fast forward to the finished product: the black charred-timber wing sits to the side like a second outbuilding, not a “bolt-on” extension. It gathers the kitchen garden courtyard, and from the south elevation you can see how the new family room now opens the house toward the parkland, rather than back to the track.

Key moves were deliberately quiet: removing the lean-to conservatory, introducing a glazed break so old and new read clearly, and re-opening the coach doors with contemporary metal glazing while keeping the turned brick eaves detail intact.

18/03/2026

Ergofocus at Bateman’s Row — a suspended, rotating hearth used here as the anchor of the main living space.

We love objects like this: compact, functional, and quietly sculptural, doing real architectural work in the plan.

What’s your favourite “functional object” that transcends its purpose?

17/03/2026

Oast houses have a particular kind of magic.

Scattered across Kent and Sussex, their roundels and rotunda silhouettes were built for work — drying hops — but they’ve become some of the most characterful and quietly eccentric homes in the landscape. They’re practical structures, yes, but also oddly theatrical: curved walls, conical roofs, and plans that refuse to behave like a “normal” house.

Witherenden Oast is a Grade II listed seventeenth-century oast with two roundels, originally part of a working farm. Our proposal adds a single-storey extension to the rear, linking a recently rebuilt roundel with a former barn (likely later 19th century), creating a clearer and more generous connection through the plan.

A shallow mono-pitched zinc roof slopes away from the barn, while a slender flat-roofed junction touches the roundel lightly — stepped back in plan to minimise the meeting point. A large flush rooflight brings daylight into what was previously a dark interior, and frames views up into the tall oak trees beyond.

From a planning standpoint, the extension sits behind the existing building to protect long-distance views — an intervention designed to be present, but not dominant. Would you live in an oast?

10/03/2026

Wanstead URC — the church that moved. Literally.

This building began life in the 1860s as an Anglican church in St Pancras. When it was due to be demolished for the new railway terminus, it was bought by the Wanstead Congregationalists and transported, stone by stone, to its new home in East London.

Our work focused on helping this Grade II listed building continue that tradition of adaptation: opening it up, making it more welcoming, and making it work harder for everyday community use.

Two refurbished entrances strengthen the connection between church and street, including glazed front doors to the main entrance and a newly opened west entrance. Accessibility is improved throughout with a new ramped approach to the rear hall, along with fully accessible WCs and a kitchen.

Inside, the main space is detailed to support many different uses — from worship to Scout meetings, youth workshops and playgroup sessions — with flexible storage and robust fittings that make sharing easy.

A building with an extraordinary past, still evolving for the life around it.

04/03/2026

Jubilee Waterside Centre.

A project centred on access, activity, and community: the extension, alteration and refurbishment of an existing climbing and watersports centre to create a fully accessible facility for children and young adults.

The brief included an abseiling tower designed for wheelchair users, alongside a 10m climbing wall, with new community, climbing and canoeing spaces linking and rationalising a series of existing 19th-century buildings.

Working across three different ground levels allowed the accommodation to be condensed and carefully maximised within a tight footprint — improving clarity, circulation and day-to-day use.

Awarded a Camden Design Award in 2004.

27/02/2026

We’re offering a complimentary architectural consultation.

If you’ve been thinking “should we do it?” — an extension, renovation, or new build — this is a chance to talk it through properly. We’ll look at your site or plans, discuss feasibility and constraints, and help you identify the strongest next steps.

To take part:
– Follow
– Like this post
– Share to your story

Selected participant will be contacted on 14 March.

24/02/2026

Staircases, by Theis + Khan.

Often treated as secondary spaces, stairs are where movement, height and structure come together. For us, they are an opportunity to shape how a building is experienced — connecting levels, framing views, and bringing interesting shapes into close contact with daily life.

From expressed plywood and steel handrails to folded timber and sculptural concrete, each staircase is designed as part of the architecture, not an afterthought.

A small selection from houses we designed. What’s you favourite?

09/12/2025

Delighted to be back working on Lumen URC 17 years after it first opened in 2008. Alison Wilding and Rona Smith’s art works are as integral to the architecture as when they were first installed along with the fabulous stained glass window designed by Pierre Fourmaintraux

09/12/2025

We’re delighted to be back working on Lumen URC 17 years after the official opening in 2008. It’s since been published in highly admired books like ‘Great Churches of London’ by Derry Brabbs. New works include updating lighting, rooflights and ancillary areas preparing it for the next years of community use. Art works by Alison Wilding and Rona Smith are integral to the architecture and meaning of the church spaces.

Address

11-13 Lonsdale Gardens
Tunbridge Wells
TN11

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.theisandkhan.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Theis + Khan posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Theis + Khan:

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Engineering Company in Tunbridge Wells?