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The City of Portsmouth has had naval dock yards for hundreds of years. With the peace dividend came reductions in the size of the Navy which led to job losses and the abandonment of vast areas of shipyards, barracks and stores. The City had to regenerate these areas and create new jobs and economic activity, so 'The Renaissance of Portsmouth Harbour' was born. This daring plan brought housing, shopping and leisure activities to the waterfront. Previously there were very few places where people could get near the water - virtually all the waterfront locations had been reserved for naval use.

Sutton Vane Associates first produced a strategy for the Historic Dockyard - home of HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and many listed buildings and monuments. This was accepted and Sutton Vane Associates moved on into detail design. The practice was then asked to prepare a strategy for the rest of Portsmouth Harbour including the Gosport side. What had been a large project became an enormous project. It now became possible to create a plan for the whole harbour arena. It took days of walking around the harbour and crossing and re-crossing the water in all the ferries to try to understand all the views and the complex geometry of the spaces. The whole practice went on a trip on one of the ferries to France and back to see the views that visitors see as they arrive in Portsmouth. The whole waterfront was photographed by day and night and then drawn. This helped to get an understanding of the spaces and the architecture. The drawings became the basis for the design proposals, they were used to work out which buildings should be lit and how.

A new Millennium walk was constructed around the edge of both sides of the harbour. This gives pedestrians new access to the water's edge and new views. Most of the buildings and structures that were lit could be seen from the route. Some structures which were visible from the harbour were a long way back from the water, for example the towers of the Guildhall and the University's Park Building. These are both classical white stone buildings and they make a fine composition together. Once it had been decided to light the Guildhall tower it then become essential to light the whole main front of the Guildhall. The Guildhall is the civic heart of Portsmouth and it was appropriate to light it to make a bold statement about this large lighting project.

In all about forty buildings, structures and spaces were lit. Some structures already had schemes which had been fine but which had been allowed to fall into disrepair, in which case, if the original was the best that could be achieved, it was given some love and attention in the form of an overhaul.

Individual Buildings in detail.

• The Guildhall (Portsmouth's fine Town Hall)
  A fabulous classical pile. The whole building is lit by warm white light, though by day no light fittings are visible at all. The lower colonnaded part was lit with Meyer Superlights fitted with 3000K ceramic metal halide lamps fixed out of sight on the plinth. It was important that there was no glare into the windows, this was achieved by the use of special cowls on the luminaires. The pediment and parts of the tower are picked out with very narrow beam luminaires by Francis and by WE-EF mounted on the building opposite. Some iGuzzini Radius luminaires were specified for the hard to reach parts. The two pergolas were lit so that their arches were emphasised, as with the arches on the tower. The clock had always been back-lit and this lighting was left intact but brought into the control of the new central control system for the building. The glazing at the top of the tower is original and is coloured yellow. This was back lit from within and the star on the top is uplit through the glazed roof of the top of the tower.

• Portsmouth University Park Building - the tower and entrance facade
  The tower is visible as a sister to the Guildhall's tower from much of the harbour. The two towers are both classical white stone buildings. The tower was lit using the same principles as the Guildhall tower so that the two towers kept their similarity by night. The ship on the top was spot lit using very narrow beam fittings, one of which was mounted on the roof of the Guildhall. These two towers are the beacon for the civic centre heart of Portsmouth.

• Portsmouth University St Michael's and King Henry Buildings - four chimneys lit in blue
  These are modern University buildings set in a part of the city that has many modern buildings. Sutton Vane Associates felt they should become the night time beacon for this high-tech part of the City. The four chimneys on the St MichaelŐs building are finished in blue and silver so it was a natural decision to light them and the single chimney on the King Henry Building in blue light. Ceramic metal halide luminaires (Meyer Superspots) with dichroic blue filters were used. The luminaires for each chimney were set out to emphasise its roundness.

• The 18 Gun Battery, an ancient monument, and surrounding landscaping
  The outside of the arches were uplit with luminaires in specially constructed pits which integrated with the new landscape surfaces. The lighting was designed to emphasise the ruggedness of the brick and stonework. The arches are an Ancient Monument so SVA were very reluctant to introduce any new cable routes or cause any disturbance to the structure. The original lighting consisted of a bulkhead fitting at the top of each arch. These were glarey and unattractive, but it was decided that this must be the position for the new luminaire. Then there would be no need for any new cable routes. The lighting of each arch is by a very narrow beam downlight set in a vandal resistant cylinder. This makes an intense circle of light on the paving and the stone coloured light that bounces up lights the whole arch with a soft and glare free illumination. When looking down the Esheresque interconnecting arches, the rhythm that the alternating pools of light and dark make is entrancing.

• The Historic Dockyard
  All the lighting of the Historic Dockyard area is controlled by a central system by Jemesis which gives a number of scenes. When the site is open to visitors all the facades and buildings are lit. When the Dockyard is closed to visitors (but naval traffic still moves across the site) then there is basic street lighting. The whole Dockyard is regularly used for special events and functions so each building can be individually controlled.

• HMS Victory and surroundings
  Lighting this most famous British Ship was a daunting task. There is no lighting on the ship itself, the problems of hiding cabling and equipment on such an important and highly visible vessel were so great that it was not attempted. Luminaires are concealed in the ship's dry dock and on the surrounding paved areas. The dry dock luminaires shine down to light the whole hull and up to light the rest of the body of the vessel. The masts are lit with very narrow beam fixtures with spreader lenses. Each mast and its rigging is individually lit so that there is minimum light wastage. Even though white light is used throughout, because the ship is painted mostly in black and yellow it sometimes looks as if it is lit with SON - "But it is not SON!" shouts Mark Sutton Vane. The ship's lit masts are a beacon for the Historic Dockyard and for the heritage of the City in the same way the Guildhall denotes the civic centre and the blue chimneys show the technological parts of the University. The long Victory Boulevard was lit mostly by light reflected off the Store Houses. Where lamp posts were needed Bega fittings were used to give as glare free a source as possible.

• HMS Warrior
  This ship, which is a similar size to Victory, was deliberately lit in the same way as Victory. But because the ship is newer and as much of the superstructure is very heavily restored there was not such a worry about fixing luminaires onto the vessel. So the masts are lit by luminaires hidden in structures on the deck. The hull is lit from the dock side.

• Victory Gate, The Dockyard Porter's Lodge, The Victory Gallery and Store Houses Numbers 9, 10 and 11
  These were all lit by ceramic metal halide ground recessed luminaires. The light reflected off some of the buildings provides illumination for the surrounding areas. This gives a lovely soft light which is coloured by the facade. Where the facades are red brick and Portland stone the lighting is slightly pink, where the facade is white then the light is a more conventional white.

• Gosport - HMS Alliance
  This huge black submarine is raised up out of the sea on a dramatic structure. Meyer Superlights were mounted on adjacent mooring posts in the sea to wash the vast expanse of black hull. The conning tower and the prow were picked out and given extra emphasis.

• Timespace, a new landscaped area to celebrate the Millennium
  This tells the time in many different ways. The central post is a gnomon whose shadow tells the time. There are three rings of Louis Poulsen ground recessed LED luminaires. One ring for hours, one for minutes and one for seconds. The luminaires come on to tell the time and the light slowly moves around circles. Children love the seconds ring because the lights come on and go off quite fast and they can chase around. The hours are boring for them because the lighting only changes once an hour. The LEDs are on all day and all night, they can be seen even on bright days. They are controlled by a system by Select Software: this receives a time signal, decodes it and then uses it to change the lighting sequences. The lighting of the gnomon and the general lighting of the area is a more conventional mixture of compact fluorescent and metal halide, controlled by a standard photocell system.

• Seaward Tower and Harbour Tower
  These two large 1960s residential blocks dominate the Gosport side of the harbour. Their sides are seen from a long way out to sea and the fronts are visible from much of the Portsmouth side. By night even when they were unlit they were clearly visible, some people like them, some people hate them, but they were not going to go away. So Mark stuck his neck out and said he was going to light them. There was some shock at this proposal. A mail shot was sent out to all the residents to tell them about the proposals and to ask them to a demonstration of the lighting on one of the buildings, there had been worries about light penetrating bedrooms and stopping people seeing their televisions. But after the demonstration the scheme got approval by the residents and is now one of the most dramatic parts of the whole harbour project. The front facades are lit in blue and white light by very narrow beam luminaires from We-Ef. The wonderful 1960s mosaics on the sides which are seen way out to sea were also lit.

• Blake Court and Hammond Court
  These two residential buildings are part of the same development as the Harbour and Seaward Towers. As they are not so important to the overall appearance of the Gosport view it was decided to only light the water towers on the tops of the buildings. Throughout the whole huge scheme white light was used predominantly for lighting buildings, the only coloured light that was used was the blue on the Gosport blocks and the University Chimneys as a linking element across the water. The Portsmouth Harbour lighting project won the Community Lighting category of the 2002 Lighting Design Awards.

information: Sutton Vane Associates