Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham

Gun Wharf was designed by Arup Associates and built in 1976-78 as the administrative headquarters for Lloyd's of London.

Materials

The building has a reinforced concrete frame with external walls clad predominantly in red-brown brick. Brown ceramic tiles are used for internal flooring in circulation areas and selectively as internal and external wall coverings. External windows and doors are framed in brown anodised aluminium, and internal joinery is of light oak. The roofs are covered in grey concrete tiles, with courtyard walkways roofed in lead.

Plan and Layout

Built over five stepped levels with pitched roofs, the building has a figure-of-eight footprint around two internal courtyard gardens: a lower one on level 2 to the south, and an upper one on level 3 to the north. The site is bordered to the east by Dock Road and to the west by the River Medway. The fall in land levels from east to west means that the main entrance off Dock Road opens into level 3.

The building's internal planning is rigorously informed by its square structural bays. Large open-plan spaces are punctuated by vertical columns which mark the division between each bay, and bays can be flexibly divided and subdivided by the insertion of proprietary screens to create new offices and meeting rooms—the smallest module achievable being a quarter bay.

The rational horizontal planning is married with more complex sectional planning which exploits the changing levels of the site, meaning that no two levels have an identical footprint. Only one stair, to the far north, links all five levels; the other five stairs, which are spread across the building, link different levels depending on their location. The lowest level of the building, level 1, is given over to plant and storage. Level 2 has office space, the post room, stores, IT department, training rooms and the service yard. Level 3 contains the main reception area, the canteen, suites of meeting rooms, and office space. Level 4 contains more office space and occupies only the north and east part of the footprint. Level 5 comprises a simple L-shaped range of offices framing the north-east corner.

Setting and Grounds

The building stands within a site of approximately seven and a half acres, which includes a car park at entrance level to the south-east, and terraced gardens stepping down towards the river to the south-west. The gardens comprise lawns and borders with mixed planting of trees and shrubs. A row of poplars and hedging screens the car park to the west, and within the car park the rows of parking bays are separated by standard trees (originally hornbeam, some now replaced with field maple). There are fixed brickwork planters to the front of the building, and further areas of garden and informal planting to the north and west.

Exterior

The building has a low horizontal emphasis, its composition dominated by expanses of red-brown brickwork, and deeply recessed windows set beneath overhanging eaves or within long slots, supported vertically by distinctive paired concrete mullions. Accessed from Dock Road to the east, the main entrance is central, announced by a large entrance canopy formed from two of the internal structural bays roofed in lead, and to the right a pair of tiled lift shafts around a glazed lobby providing a contrasting vertical element. At level 2 a terrace wraps around the south-west corner of the building, linking to a south-facing veranda overlooking a lawn known as the 'bowling green'. To the west the terrace terminates with steps down to river level.

Interior

There is a strong aesthetic coherence to the interiors, achieved by the exposed structural columns and a consistent palette of materials and detailing. The structural columns comprise four cruciform-section concrete uprights clustered around a metal-cased service core. They support the shallow, truncated, four-sided pyramids of the ceiling; lighting and ventilation strips are arranged around the outer edge of the pyramids, and in the centre. The circulation spaces are floored in red-brown ceramic tiles laid in herringbone pattern, and internal walls are clad in light oak flush panelling or red-brown ceramic tiles. External walls have a high proportion of glazing, with heating vents and services in brown metal casings beneath. Meeting rooms and private offices are enclosed by glazed and solid light oak panels, which are designed to be easily moved in order to reconfigure the size and location of rooms.

Reception (Level 3)

The principal entrance opens into a large reception area, beyond which a flight of stairs descends into a double-height space next to the lower courtyard garden, and a secondary entrance/exit opens out ahead towards the river. To the right of the reception area the floor level steps up to a waiting area enclosed by low-level oak and leather banquettes, and an open-well concrete cantilevered stair, which rises around four cruciform-section concrete newels—a playful reference to the building's structural make-up. Beyond this is a view through to the upper courtyard garden.

Courtyard Gardens (Levels 2 and 3)

Circulation space surrounds both courtyards, which are enclosed by fully glazed walls, and accessed by sliding glazed doors. The courtyards are filled with informal planting and the outer perimeter is shaded by steeply pitched lead-covered roofs, or, in the case of the double-height north side of the lower courtyard, the glazing is screened externally by brise soleil panels.

Canteen (Level 3)

The upper courtyard garden is overlooked to the north by an area that was originally a staff bar, and remains as overflow seating for the canteen and for informal meetings. It is separated from the surrounding circulation space by low tiled walls which continue to the north around the outer edge of the large sunken dining area and servery which form the canteen.

Subsidiary Features

The building survives with a high level of preservation inside and out, including two figureheads acquired by Lloyd's in 1980, which the maintenance department restored in their spare time. One of these is Jupiter or Zeus, with a pair of recumbent lions, which came from HMS Howe, launched at Chatham in 1815. This is displayed on the outside of the building, to the left of the main entrance. The other figurehead is female and her provenance is unknown. She is displayed inside the building by the lower courtyard.

The footprint of the Gun Wharf building occupies approximately one third of the total site, with the rest being occupied by the car park, service yard, terraced gardens, riverside walk, and circulation routes connecting these spaces. A number of hard landscaping features which form part of Arup Associates' original scheme define, contain, or stand within this designed landscape setting. These include:

• Walls, retaining walls and fixed planters, built in brickwork to match that of the main building
• Steps, paved surfaces, and footpath borders, laid in brick, stone, concrete slab and granite setts
• Car park lamp columns comprised of plain black metal uprights with pairs of spherical lamps
• Low level lighting to the car park and riverside walk comprised of tapering square rough-faced concrete bollards with a pyramidal top and a clear rectangular lamp on one face
• Nine cast-iron 18th-century cannons unearthed during construction and mounted on replication wooden carriages made by Lloyd's carpenters; these face out towards the river, seven of them on the lower lawn to the south of the building, and two on the level 2 terrace

All original hard landscaping features within the curtilage form part of the listed building, though the scale and extent of the subsidiary features makes mapping them accurately difficult, so they are not individually marked on the List entry map.