Docking House will unite a vacant grade II-listed former dockyard building and a timber-framed newbuild
Medway council has approved plans by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios for a new cultural and creative building for the University of Kent.
Docking House will be a refurbished grade II-listed former dockyard building called Police Section House and a timber-framed newbuild block.
Located in Medway’s Historic Dockyard Chatham between the university’s Pembroke campus and its Historic Dockyard premises, the scheme will aim to inspire future development in the surrounding area.
Its two main blocks will contain commercial digital production studios, support for local businesses, education and training space and host a programme of public events.
The three-storey Police Section House was built in the mid-19th century and has served a number of uses but has been derelict since the 1980s.
A deep retrofit of the building will see it house the scheme’s public facing spaces, its exhibition spaces, hirable meeting rooms, post-production studios and offices.
The thermal performance of the building’s existing fabric will be improved with sustainable materials, low energy heating, lighting and ventilation systems and on-site electricity generation.
Around the back of the site, the 735sq m new digital production studios building will include three studios and associated dressing rooms in a CLT and glulam-framed building clad in weathered steel.
Its character has been inspired by the materials and technologies which have defined the Dockyard historically, including a brickwork ground floor ‘plinth’ which references the dry docks and engineered walls of Brunel’s adjacent Sawmills.
The block’s patterned, cross-braced Corten steel cladding has also been inspired by the dockyard’s metal boat-building era, and the mast and rigging which was manufactured at the dockyards.
FCBS associate Luke Gilbert said Docking Station has the potential to make an “enormous catalytic contribution to the cultural regeneration of the area and help position Medway at the centre of the burgeoning digital arts sector.”
He added: “Our refurbishment of the former Police Section House will restore the local landmark and open-up the building to the public for the first time, providing amenities for the community and an opportunity to experience immersive performances and world-leading motion capture technology, first-hand.”
The two buildings will be united by a planted courtyard and an elevated walkway which Gilbert said will reference the dockyard’s industrial heritage.
The scheme has been supported by Arts Council England’s Cultural Development Fund, which consists of investment from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Levelling Up Fund from the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities as well as the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Creative Estuary.
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