Grimsby Fish Sheds
Expanding Grimsby Docks regeneration
Grimsby Fish Docks continues a suite of interventions around the Grimsby docks, including the consented works to the Grade II* listed Victorian Ice Factory and a new hotel.
The series of projects represent an opportunity to reimagine the whole fish dock area, including one of Europe’s most threatened industrial heritage buildings. The aim is to reinstate public access to the dockside lost for the best part of a generation to the local community whose grandparents still remember the port and fish docks as the centre of international trade and their daily place of work, essential to the prosperity of their town.
Grimsby Fish Sheds Intervention
The project will add 300,000 sqft of new workspace ranging from light industrial to traditional office and supporting F&B premises, targeted at the emerging the modern engineering businesses and innovators who today work in the Offshore Wind, Renewables and Green Maritime Sector already focussed on the region, but lacking in high quality and diverse workspace. Alongside the reimagining of the Ice Factory itself as a modern workplace and events centre, this has the potential to mirror the historic reputation of the Grimsby Docks as the site of technological progress, now focussed on new, sustainable innovation.
Architecture
The new Fish Shed buildings reimagine familiar light industrial forms to deliver a variety of spaces across three levels. These range from 10m high manufacturing and testing halls to traditional office floorplates with panoramic views of the Kasbah conservation area, fish docks and the north sea beyond.
The familiar rhythm of pitched roofs was developed in close collaboration with Heritage England and the local planning authority with further consultation with Design Yorkshire and the Victorian Society to ensure a sympathetic reinstatement of the historic dense streetscape lost over the past few decades whilst deferring to the important Ice Factory building. Further integration with the historic fabric is seen in the overhead conveyor connection between the Ice Factory and the new buildings, with the potential to include the reinstatement of the listed conveyors taken down and set aside in the past. This language is extended across the new industrial buildings, reimagining the movement of ice as the movement of people, back and forth from their workplaces on new ‘conveyor’ gantries.
The whole perimeter of the south dock at ground level will now be available to local people to walk, run or sit by the water, not only reconnecting the community with an important part of their past, but also making an important accessible and welcoming link between the city centre to the south and the historic fish preparation and engineering district of the Kasbah conservation area beyond to the north.
All this is supported by new high quality public realm and landscaping design by Urban Green, aimed at vastly increasing biodiversity whilst retaining the industrial character of the dockside. This includes the reinstatement of local species on land, and the design of ‘trawler’ planted islands within the dock itself. The project leaves space for a future redevelopment of the main pier into the dock – Henderson’s Jetty – for outdoor markets and public access, as well as a floating pool for outdoor swimming and recreation. Within the landscape, key references to the site’s past are included, such as the reinstatement of cargo rail lines set into the floor finishes as well as public art themed around blocks of ice, referencing the impressive scale of the blocks once produced in the factory and moved over to the fish sheds for packing.
Dredging and cleaning of the dock envisaged as part of the enabling works is also expected to improve the environment for waterborne species.
Sustainability
Aimed at the offshore wind industry and associated businesses, the project consolidates an emerging green tech sector already present in the area, providing new sorely needed spaces for development, innovation and – through newfound proximity - collaboration. This is essential to cementing the area’s growing reputation in this sector and bringing much needed jobs, not only directly, but in ancillary businesses to support this community.
Bringing the infrastructure, transport connections and brownfield land of the dock back into meaningful reuse is key to delivering this in a sustainable way, supporting a community to recover from recent decline as well as supporting the industry to develop sustainable outcomes. The project is designed in such a way as to be able to be constructed from structural mass timber, and the site for the project will partly be delivered by dredging clean the existing dock and using the product to infill an area of dilapidated pontoon structure. This is expected to both dramatically increase the water quality and at the same time reclaim an area for development currently at risk of being collapse.
The roof is also designed to deliver a substantial area for on-site energy generation via PVs whilst opportunities are also being explored to use dock water for cooling, as well as to provide additional energy generation using micro wind turbines, or even more significant ones in time.
It is also important to consider the effect on the confidence and pride of the local community. The dock, Ice Factory and Kasbah are integral to the identity of Great Grimsby and have been absent as a source of pride for too long. A sustainable community is a vibrant, viable and confident one. These three projects, as a piece and through the ongoing dedication of the client Tom Shutes and his design team, have the potential to build a firm ground on which this proud and historic town can stand again.
