This design comes from expanding the idea of the Weaver-class SYM. It also lifts a couple of other design elements that exists from larger ships as well, namely the forward shuttle bay and larger quad engine mount. Unlike the Weaver, which has a single forward facing extendable gantry, this mobile heavy yard has a series of gantrys that run along the underside of the ship and extend outwards at an angle, making it easier to accommodate larger hulls and other constructs.
I was still working towards the kind of aesthetic I wanted for deWulf ships with this design, but even early on I had a good idea of what I was looking for. While I had a good grasp on the smaller hulls (destroyers and smaller) and a reasonable idea about heavy cruisers, the light cruiser as a bridge and anything larger than a CA was rather nebulous. This heavy shipyard was the first step towards finding something that would work for those larger hulls.
This design most closely resembles the larger dreadnought-hulled heavy shipyards of the Lürssen and Stülcken classes, of which the former is built around a full sized shipyard, and the latter a quartet of machine shops.