Victoria Park Building, University of Portsmouth
- Client
- University of Portsmouth
- Services
- Landscape Architecture
- Sector
- Education
- Location
- Portsmouth, UK
- Collaborators
- Architect: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Campus landscape design connecting two divided sites through Victoria Park
The University of Portsmouth’s Victoria Park Building, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, will bring the Faculty of Business and Law and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences together for the first time. Sited on the former Victoria Swimming Pool site adjacent to Victoria Park, the building straddles the existing divide between the university’s Guildhall Campus and its Northern Quarter, separated by the A3 road and railway. Benoy was appointed to develop the landscape design strategy to support the building and improve connectivity and cohesion between the two campus areas.
A landscape that speaks to its setting
Local Purbeck stone is used as a material reference to integrate the development with its surroundings, and the civic spaces created alongside the new building match its architectural tone. Simple, consistent motifs establish visual and material unity with the neighbouring Victoria Park, ensuring the university’s landscape reads as a natural extension of the wider green infrastructure.
Softening boundaries and improving movement
Floral perimeter planting and new paved links soften the previously hard edges of the site, opening it up to greater ease of access and movement. Native and biodiverse planting is introduced throughout, including within the new building itself and at rooftop level, reinforcing the university’s sustainability ambitions and contributing to the ecological network of the city.
