Gardens here
Dense urban housing dominates — Victorian and Edwardian terraces from Old Portsmouth through Southsea to North End and Cosham. Tight rear plots, often six to ten metres deep, frequently with high brick walls on three sides. Some of the best hard-landscaping work in Hampshire happens on sites that look impossible on first viewing.
Newer developments — the Gunwharf Quays edge, Tipner, the western waterfront — bring different garden typologies: roof terraces, courtyard gardens, smaller plots with strong contemporary architecture. Salt exposure is a factor across most of the city.
Working the area
Forty to fifty minutes from the studio via the M27 and A27. Selective work — terraces and gardens that justify the hardscape investment, full-resolve briefs over patchwork.
Material decisions
Tight urban palettes work best — sandstone or porcelain in single-material treatments, brick edging in Ibstock multi or reclaimed Hampshire stock to match the surrounding fabric. Lighting matters disproportionately in deep, narrow walled gardens — a recessed LED strip can transform what's otherwise a dark corridor into something the household actually uses after dark.
In practice
The studio archive doesn't yet feature a Portsmouth project. Garden composition, Warsash 2025 — with its integrated lighting and constrained-plot resolution — is the nearest reference build. Site visits to Portsmouth are free; we'll come to you and walk through specification.
Discuss a Portsmouth brief