Somers Orchard creates a high-quality, sustainable, mixed-use urban neighbourhood for Portsmouth City Council (PCC). The project is an ambitious and pioneering community-led renewal of the estate that surrounds two structurally unsound, 1960s high-rise buildings, Horatia House and Leamington House. The scheme will provide 566 mixed tenure homes alongside wider public realm improvements which will meaningfully repair the urban fabric and reconnect the neighbourhood to its surroundings. The site is strategically important and prominently situated on the edge of the city centre to the northwest of Somerstown in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The area was heavily bombed during the Second World War which resulted in a large amount of post-war redevelopment that is not in keeping with the diverse and vibrant architectural character of wider Somerstown. The site borders King Street Conservation Area to the south and the Terraces Conservation Area to the northwest, both of which showcase original Victorian and Georgian character.
Working with Portsmouth City Council (PCC), we developed overarching project principles to guide the scheme from the outset and to ensure that aspirations for environmental, social and financial value were aligned. The project uses greener design-led thinking and intelligent, sustainable optioneering to maximise benefits to quality of life whilst minimising environmental impact. All 566 homes are designed to a fabric first, Passivhaus standard whilst the wider masterplan targets BREEAM Communities Excellent. Placemaking, amenity and diverse uses have been developed through inclusive community engagement that seeks to enhance the existing social infrastructure and stimulate a local jobs economy through inclusion of affordable workspace, retail units and spaces for community use.
Working closely with PCC’s engagement team, a comprehensive engagement and co-design strategy was developed, and a Community Panel established at its heart. The panel includes local people, former residents of Horatia and Leamington Houses, local ward councillors, and representatives of schools, businesses and charities, and has taken a key guiding role in the design process. Wider engagement activities have successfully encouraged participation from hard-to-reach groups, with some engagement events drawing more than 1500 local people.
Meaningful engagement with the PCC Housing team established a variety of tenure types and a clearly defined brief for each, developed alongside an inclusivity champion. This includes council-owned general needs, ambulant-disabled accessible, wheelchair accessible, supported and sheltered homes. Engagement with operators and potential development partners informed the private build to rent element of the scheme.
Around the homes, a carefully considered, contextual spatial framework for the 3.39ha site will create new and enhanced connections that improve permeability and stitch into the local neighbourhood, providing clear routes and an improved environment for the wider community. All improvements to streets prioritise active transport and inclusive access, whilst rationalising car parking provision to create greener and safer spaces.
Across the neighbourhood, a clear hierarchy of massing and well-articulated composition of buildings contribute to the urban townscape and frame views approaching the site. Character areas within the new neighbourhood help to define subtleties and variations in the architecture, material palette and details of the buildings as well as the public realm strategies. The scheme is knitted together by a multi-layered and seasonally vibrant landscape, rooted in improving health and wellbeing with a variety of inclusive and playable open spaces.
The city edge character area to the north is comprised of taller buildings which employ a vertical pier language to emphasise slenderness whilst offering relief and animation of light and shadow throughout the day. Fully recessed balconies give further depth to the elevation whilst mitigating the impact of the wind at higher levels. Different uses at the ground floor are emphasised and grounded by a defined plinth, expressed in pre-cast concrete. The massing of the buildings steps to the south and provides an interface and sensitive frontage to the surrounding context, using semi-projecting balconies to articulate the facades whilst echoing the stacked bays of the Terraces Conservation Area. A rusticated base and more decorative brickwork elements tie also into local heritage assets. Alongside this, a balance of daylighting and solar shading has been key in informing window sizes and lintel treatment. Projecting lintels are applied to the south, west and east elevations to assist with solar shading, and cant brick chamfered reveals to the north optimise daylight into the homes.
Brick tones range from pink-buff and pink-red to a traditional red and light brown-buff. A white-buff brick is used in the galleries, as well as inset balconies to give a greater sense of light in these spaces, a technique borrowed from neighbouring Victorian courtyard blocks. Metalwork tones are a unifying lighter tone to residential windows and a darker warm bronze-grey to communal entrance doors and all ancillary spaces. A range of natural-toned, green glazed bricks give emphasis to communal entrances and provide blocks with a distinct identity, reflective of the landscape-led approach to the masterplan.
