Command of the Oceans at the Historic Dockyard Chatham

Command of the Oceans, a major, multi-award-winning project for Historic Dockyard Chatham, has secured the repair and preservation of a range of The Historic Dockyard’s Scheduled Ancient Monuments and of the 18TH century HMS Namur archaeological find, The Ship’s Timbers.

It presents world-class galleries, interpretation and visitor facilities to reveal the story and significance of the dockyard and its defences during the age of sail. The development enhances the wider Chatham Dockyard (shortlisted as a potential World Heritage Site) through the creation of a 4.5 hectare area of heritage-based public realm and a Discovery Centre for the dockyard.

The project will secure significant energy savings (both carbon and financial), identified as essential to the long- term sustainability of Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust in its corporate planning strategy. These savings are achieved by removing the need to heat substantial parts of the buildings and through improvements to thermal insulation and renewal of building services systems.

Skelly & Couch has provided full Mechanical, Electrical Public Health and environmental design on the project.

A RIBA Stirling Prize 2017 finalist, in 2018 the project was a Civic Trust Award winner and was recognised by The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) with both the Best Tourism and Leisure Award (South East) and Best Project (South East) - the top prize of their awards night!  Winner of a 2017 RIBA National Award and three RIBA South East Awards, including a special Conservation Award and Building of the Year. 

Command of the Oceans was shortlisted as Public Sector Project of the Year in both the Offsite Construction Awards 2016 and the Kent Design and Development Awards; and was a regional finalist in the 2017 AABC Conservation Civic Trust Awards.

See BBC feature and video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2vLByqHZrhLnxBN743Rnpg/riba-stirling-prize-2017-which-new-building-is-britains-best

WATCH A 360 degree INTERACTIVE video of Command of the Oceans here: