Tipner Lake in Portsmouth is con­nected to the sea so that it forms part of the har­bour in this south Eng­land city. Regen­er­a­tion of the coastal path by Tipner Lake recently com­pleted to pro­tect the north of Portsmouth from rising sea levels. The pop­u­lar coastal path here is illu­mi­nated using Selux Lif light columns.

Work on Tipner Lake’s coastal path was part of the North Port­sea Island Coastal Defence Scheme to pro­tect houses, busi­nesses and infra­struc­ture from flood­ing and was funded using 58.5 mil­lion pounds of gov­ern­ment money. As part of this regen­er­a­tion, a pro­tec­tive wall was built, the coastal path recon­structed and new seat­ing areas and view­ing points cre­ated pro­vid­ing a view of Tipner Lake. The new coastal path­way is illu­mi­nated using Lif light columns fitted with double Tritec mod­ules. The mod­u­lar Tritec optics oper­ates using LEDs arranged in a cir­cu­lar shape, which are aligned hor­i­zon­tally to the road­way. Prism rings and a con­cave reflec­tor cone ensure opti­mal light guid­ance and anti-glare.

Due to their reserved colour and pure, min­i­mal­ist design, the lumi­naires blend dis­cretely into the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, appear­ing to have having grown out of the ground with their sur­round­ings. Here the tech­ni­cal has been reduced to the light-giving Tritec module. Despite the Lif’s strict geo­met­ric shape, it incor­po­rates nat­ural, organic char­ac­ter­is­tics and pro­vides opti­mal light­ing for spaces like the pop­u­lar Tipner Lake coastal path.

client: Portsmouth City Council, Eastern Solent Coastal Partnership

landscape architect: Royal Haskoning DHV and LDA Design

photographer: Amphitype