This is the type of project that often founders on its own worthiness or ends up being stymied by well meaning politicians. However Ocean is different. The detail at every level is astounding. Sightlines are excellent, as are the acoustics, the facilities are unprecedented. The remit was to look beautiful and be practical. Formerly a Methodist Central Hall the exterior façade has been retained but inside everything is new. It is a magnificent feat of building and design. Ross Fortune
Time Out January 2001

Big splash Pamela Buxton, Outer space
The Guardian, 22 March 2001

What does £23million sound like Niall Hampton
Evening Standard, 19 March 2001

Can you turn an old hall into a great music venue? Hugh Pearman
Sunday Times, June 2001

Avoiding showy entrances or grand gestures, other than where they add to the potential of performance or exhibition, the architecture supports a blend of intimacy and world class events. A commissioned book of poems by Neil Rollinson chronicles Norden Farm’s construction process: it is perhaps fitting that poetry should be chosen as the medium to shed light on an arts centre that so consciously strives to offer a tangible relationship between art and the public. Jeremy Melvin
RIBA Journal, January 2001

Of all the mid-scale (£5-10 million) projects that I have seen, most of which are regionally-based art centres, the commissions work at Norden Farm are amongst the very highest quality. In terms of integration with architecture and the quality of the artists' interventions, the project has achieved at the very highest level. Ben Heywood –Visual Arts Officer Architecture, Commissions and the Built Environment
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF ENGLAND

This house is really a blank canvas and this is true both of the interior and exterior, …. Actually the building itself is also a work of art: the expanses of plain white wall becoming a canvas for the shadows thrown by the trees. Blank canvas and work of art the house is entirely appropriate for an art lover. The planners described the house as “a distinguished and distinctive addition to the architectural heritage of the area...expressing the best of modern design”. It’s hard to disagree.
The owner of the house is a considerable connoisseur and patron of the arts...Several pieces of art were commissioned specially for the house and garden…… The project architect Paul Jenkins designed a beautiful mobile consisting of rectangles of yellow dichroic glass which are suspended in the double height space of the dining room. Katherine Bateson on private house in Radlett
Building Design 28 March 2003

Stare case’ Building study; House, Hertfordshire Eleanor Young
RIBA Journal January 2003

Concrete housing with a difference, Grove House, Hertfordshire Paul Jenkins
Concrete, July/August 2002

Just wanted to let you know that we had parents of Year 6 students round tonight-and all I have heard in the new building is “Wow” and the sound of jaws dropping to the floor!

Wish you could have seen it—think you'd have been very pleased. E mail from Jen Carter Bursar
Downton School 2004

This is to record formally the thanks of the Trustees for the hard work that has gone into a speedy repositioning and redesign of the Health Care Centre and for your own part in the meeting on Wednesday with the local authority which seems to point towards an eventual successful outcome. letter from Fr Paul C Hamill SJ regarding Corpus Christi Care Centre
on behalf of the Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes ( the Jesuits) May 2004