Sitting on stilts on the banks of the River Thames estuary the yacht club is designed to provide all users a place to store their boats, enjoy the facilities and the views across the water.
The new building provides a new club house for Erith Yacht Club on the south bank of the River Thames near the Dartford River Crossing and replaces the existing facilities housed in a permanently moored retired Norwegian car ferry.
The project used funding from the National Lottery and the London Borough of Bexley to create a potential Olympic training base for visiting teams and in the longer term training and education facilities for local young people. By creating new and vastly better access to the river and the benefits and uses of it, there were tremendous regenerative effects on the area that the new facilities delivered.
Taking the reference design for the site, we developed the concept and detail of the new facility, working with Sport England, Bexley and the yacht club to ensure the project fully met a complex set of requirements. The building is raised on piles above the 100-year flood level.
The site, although heavily contaminated with Japanese Knotweed, is next to an important wetland area with SSSI status, and has restricted vehicular access. We worked with the contractor and design team to review construction options and ensure that the project could be built with the least environmental impact on the site.