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A new creative hub for Medway
Docking Station will transform the Grade II listed Scheduled Ancient Monument and former Police Section House, situated just to the north of The Historic Dockyard Chatham, into a unique creative facility.
This £14M regeneration project will deliver a world-leading centre of creative digital production, education and community engagement. It will create new public realm, boost civic pride, drive economic and skills development and Medway’s levelling-up priorities, and bring world class digital opportunities to Chatham.
It will deliver c.966sqm for researchers, artists, creative practitioners, and technologists including:
The immersive digital studio will provide cutting-edge technologies and allow students, businesses and academics to innovate and experiment with a range of technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, virtual production, motion capture, immersive audio, artificial intelligence, digital art and biomechanics. The possible applications of this technology across the creative and cultural industries and the sectors of health and wellbeing, sports sciences, and psychology are vast. The Docking Station aims to put Medway at the forefront of research and innovation into digital immersive experiences.
Multi-award winning architectural practice specialising in sustainability, heritage architecture, and placemaking, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios are working with us to create a unique, purpose-built facility, and to restore the Police Section House to become a cultural landmark for Medway.
Design work is progressing well and the Planning Application is expected to be submitted in the summer 2023
Located between the University’s Pembroke campus and its Historic Dockyard premises, this development will place cultural and creative industries at the heart of the regeneration plans for the last remaining undeveloped part of the former Dockyard site. The Docking Station will boost productivity, generate jobs, make a visible impact on Medway’s cultural regeneration and provide the facilities and skills development opportunities to support digital innovation within the creative industries sector.
Creative Estuary and Medway Council funding has kick-started project development by enabling the completion of feasibility studies which has paved the way for further investment.
Medway Council have secured a £5.6 million share of the Government’s Levelling Up Fund for the project and iCCi has secured £3.5 million from the Cultural Development Fund via Arts Council England. The project is also supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Docking Station Project is formally overseen by the iCCi Board. We are currently establishing a Creative Technology Development Board that will report to iCCi Board, to help shape project delivery and embed future technologies across our work, with representatives from industry and education including the BFI, Creative UK, Dovetail Games, Screen South and The Backstage Centre.
Catherine Richardson, Director iCCi, University of Kent
