Admiralty Quarter
Description
The Admiralty Quarter site was originally a network of narrow streets containing houses and businesses. A small 19th century brewery grew into a large business occupied by Brickwoods and Whitbreads, but closed in the 1980s. The site was bought by the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust for use as a car park, offices and stores.
David Richmond and Partners won a competition to produce a strategy which included retaining the car park to accommodate more than 750 cars.
Admiralty Quarter provides car parking needed for the historic dockyard alongside a high-density housing development on a 1.7 hectare site. The 569 apartments, ground floor commercial premises and gardens disguise the car parking below.
The scheme provides a new public square which offers a breathing space between busy Queen Street and the 22-storey housing tower.
“The local planning authority and Portsmouth Naval Base Property trust were keen to encourage a mixed-use development that would deliver major economic and social benefits to the area as well as a significant environmental enhancement.”
John Pike, senior planning officer
”On the Queen Street frontage we felt the corner of the Dockyard Wall and the widening of the pavement, historically formed by the divergence of two roads, should be marked by the construction of a new public square’”
David Richmond Architects
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