Chatham Maritime is a major, high-end, mixed use development that occupies a large site close to the Chatham Dockyards on the Medway River. Two distinctive glazed residential towers will stand out as landmarks, almost like lighthouses, positioned on the northern most tips of the peninsula’s two historic quays.

With curvilinear triangular footprints, the 15 and 19 storey high towers, oriented east and west, will capture stunning views of the estuary and river. They stand above a further development of two low rise, industrial style buildings, one accommodating more apartments, the other designated for commercial and leisure use.

The two quays have design restraints caused by Victorian dock walls at the perimeters, in close proximity to permanently flooded docks. The walls confine the footprint of the basement levels on both quays, resulting in the foundations for each tower having to be built below the water level. Our ground engineering team had to develop an innovative piling scheme to support the towers without impacting on the dock walls. The solution was to use a number of raking piles to take the considerable horizontal load, some of which pass under the dock walls.

The development on both quays includes a basement to be used for car parking and to house plant rooms beneath the towers. Structurally, windloading is a clear issue for the towers, especially on their exposed site. Buro Happold has designed the structural elements to manage wind action with lateral bracing to safely transfer horizontal wind loads into the ground and keep lateral movements of the towers within safe limits.

Date: 2000 - current