The Doughnut
| The Doughnut | |
|---|---|
An aerial view of The Doughnut in 2004
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| General information | |
| Status | Complete |
| Type | Office building |
| Location | Benhall, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK |
| Coordinates | 51°53′58.21″N 2°7′27.64″W / 51.8995028°N 2.1243444°WCoordinates: 51°53′58.21″N 2°7′27.64″W / 51.8995028°N 2.1243444°W |
| Completed | 2003 |
| Opened | 2004 |
| Cost | £330 million |
| Height | 21 m (70 ft) |
| Dimensions | |
| Diameter | 180 m (600 ft) |
"The Doughnut" is the nickname given to the headquarters of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British cryptography and intelligence agency. It is located on a 71-hectare (176-acre) site in Benhall, in the suburbs of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in South West England. The Doughnut houses 5,500 employees; GCHQ is the largest single employer in Gloucestershire. Built to modernise and consolidate GCHQ's multiple buildings in Cheltenham, The Doughnut was completed in 2003, and GCHQ moved into the building in 2004. It is the largest building constructed for secret intelligence operations outside the United States. The Doughnut was too small for the number of staff at its completion, and a second building in a secret and undisclosed location in the 'Gloucestershire area' now also accommodates staff from GCHQ. The Doughnut is surrounded by car and bicycle parking in concentric rings, and well protected by security.
The construction of the building was financed by a private finance initiative and construction costs were greatly increased after difficulties in transferring computer infrastructure to the building. The building is modern in design and built primarily from steel, aluminium, and stone. GCHQ management aspired for the building to be as well known internationally as the Pentagon.
The construction of the Doughnut in 2003 consolidated the operations previously spread across two sites into a single location, replacing more than 50 buildings in the process. The last staff from the nearby GCHQ site at Oakley were transferred to the Doughnut in late 2011.
The design of the Doughnut reflects GCHQ's intended new mode of work after the end of the Cold War, with its design facilitating talking among staff, and between them and the Director of GCHQ and his subordinates. It was estimated that anyone in the building could reach any other worker within five minutes. The director of GCHQ has no office; in 2014 director Iain Lobban described his desk as being located "within the shouting distance of lawyers".
At a cost of £330m, the construction of the Doughnut was funded by a private finance initiative (PFI) put forward by a collective that included British facilities management and construction company Carillion, the Danish security company Group 4/Falck (now G4S), and the British telecommunications company BT Group. The consortium are scheduled to be paid £800m to maintain the Doughnut for 30 years. The creation of the Doughnut was the largest PFI project to date for the British government. The building was designed by the British architect Chris Johnson for the American architectural firm Gensler, and constructed and built by Carillion.
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