Pit Stop

Abstract

This project deals with the industrial heritage of Gibraltar and its future prospects in the context of the global economy and the local culture. More particularly, it is about an upgrade of a ship repair yard known as Gibdock. It is aiming to counterbalance the issue between the ecological and Gibraltar’s economy, improving a better quality of the local environment to Gibraltar, and while providing efficiency and convenience as if a pit stop, to make a profit on the global stage of the maritime industry.It is strategically located in the western Mediterranean but cannot accommodate the majority of current container ships due to its limited size of dry-docks. Historically, Gibraltar has been fortified for many centuries, and human activities happened both on land and on ocean—Gibdock used to be a British naval dock (S, M and L size) for repairing and docking battleships, and has dominated Gibraltar’s economy with the naval dockyard providing the bulk of economic activity until 1984— this, however, has changed after then, and these undersized docks impeded Gibdock to catch up on new demands in ship repairs and refits currently.The upgrade strategy critically considers new international marine regulations, anticipating standard sizes, operations quantity, type of repairs for the next decades. It finalizes what kind of refits to ships need to complete, in order to comply to new rules. This anticipation of design is based on a wide range of sizes in relation to container ships, machine operations, spare parts, and considers how this design can turn the side effect of heavy industry in positive way. As a consequence, a new piece of infrastructure modernizes these S, M, and L docks while a new wet-dock in front of the existing docks enables Gibdock to modify XL boats. The service Gibdock provides is part of a larger marine business strategy called the ‘’one-stop-shop”. By offering all the services in one place —Gibraltar can gain a competitive advantage over Ports which only offer one or two of these services. This modification of ships at Gibdock is another service alongside those that Gibraltar already provides: refueling& underwater cleaning (at North mole), loading & unloading (at container berth), crewing & de-crewing, mooring (at Quayside), repairing and refitting (at Gibdock).