Architects Chapman Taylor Partners were given the highly ambitious challenge to turn a 50 hectare wasteland near London into the Thurrock Lakeside Pavilion Shopping Centre. Construction took place at high speed with 100,000 square meters of shops and 12,000 parking spaces completed in just two years. The Centre provides a perfect trading environment for five large department stores and 300 other retailers, in addition to a fine assortment of restaurants, cafes and leisure facilities.

Henry Herzberg, head of the project at Chapman Taylor, had taken a close look at two shopping complexes on the eastern coast of the United States. He was inspired to use the existing stretch of water to create a lakeside building.

Playing extensively on the nautical theme, the architecture is full of fun – bridges, gangways, pontoons and ships’ rails abound.

The metal cladding was chosen from Kingspan Building Products using a Kynar 500® coating from British Steel’s Colorcoat range, the Bahamas Blue color creating the atmosphere of a marina.

The Pavilion is part of one of most important shopping centers built in Europe. It was therefore essential that the coating used on the galvanized steel panels be designed not only to resist color change, the bad weather and pollution, but also be very easy to maintain. Kynar 500® based coatings easily met this specification.