New York, NY
The renovation of this courtyard at Columbia University provides a peaceful refuge from the rigors of academic life. The design preserves the existing brick paving as a base for a new garden at the center of the department of Computer Science. A continuous planter frames the courtyard’s central gathering space and reduces the occupiable open space to meet code. This planter forms a lush buffer between faculty offices and the courtyard’s gathering space made up of magnolia trees and a rich variety of evergreen and flowering shrubs and groundcovers. Niches tucked into the planting areas provide verdant nooks for sitting, studying and quiet conversation. The central paved area is scattered with moveable tables and umbrellas that can be cleared to make way for department and campus events.
CLIENT: Columbia University
COLLABORATORS: Shakespeare Gordon Vlado Architects (SGVA)
EAST HARLEM CHARTER SCHOOL
East Harlem, NY
The ground floor entry plaza and roof terrace for the new building of the East Harlem Tutorial Program’s Scholar’s Academy High School offer amenity spaces that enrich the student experience and enhance the surrounding neighborhood. Anchoring the corner of 1st Avenue and 104th Street, the school’s entrance plaza is a welcoming space for students, educators, and the surrounding community. Cast stone site walls extending from the building’s base frame the plaza and form a gateway that guides the daily flow of people through an open paved landscape and up monumental steps to the school’s entrance. Amphitheater sit steps and a custom wood deck platform are flexible sites for gathering and events. A pair of canopy trees and a row of columnar trees create a lush backdrop to the plaza, and a visual buffer for neighbors.
The second floor roof terrace beside the school cafeteria offers an open gathering space surrounded by linear benches and extensive areas of lush planting. Moveable furnishings can be arranged in multiple ways to allow for daily lunch spill over, outdoor classrooms, lectures and special events.
New York, NY
This temporary installation is a beautification of a construction fence and temporary planting which can be seen from the lobby of NYU Langone Medical Center. This has been used throughout the courtyard and phase of the project begin and are completed. The super-graphic image of a birch forest, an inspiration for the Tisch planting design, is imposed upon the fence as a backdrop. In front of this, the theme is repeated in over-sized painted galvanized troughs planted with river birches and under story plants. A ground plane of Long Island beach pebbles creates a natural floor that matches the paving palette of the project under construction. JPLA is also the Landscape Architect responsible for the Planting Design and Installation of the completed Tisch Courtyard.
E 22nd St Residential Roof Terrace
New York, NY
The renovation of an existing residential building for staff at NYU Langone Medical Center. JPLA has designed a multi-use Rooftop Terrace space.
CLIENT: NYU Langone Medical Center
COLLABORATORS: Rosenberg Kolb Architects
Manhasset, NY
LEED Silver Rated
This project includes four main spaces; the South Garden, the Upper Garden, the Interior Courtyard and the Entry/Drop-off Area. The landscape design for the Entry and Drop-off Area is simple: a repetition of materials and forms that promote clear and safe circulation. The South Garden, adjacent to the entry, provides seating, a rolling lawn and shade trees surrounding a serpentine wall. Above the serpentine wall, on structure, is the Upper Garden, characterized by mounds shaped by tilted stone walls and planted with lush highland plantings. On the 4th Floor, the Interior Courtyard, above a stepped slab, has large curved planters, pedestal pavers and custom linear seating. The large curved planters are tilted to provide views of nature and to create a sense of privacy for the patients in adjacent rooms. Responsible stormwater management was crucial to protect the quality of drinking water on Long Island, a sole source aquifer. Throughout the landscape, water is directed to permeable surfaces, allowing it to infiltrate and recharge the local aquifer.
JPLA took this project from Concept Design through Construction Documents.
CLIENT: North Shore University Hospital Long Island Jewish Heath Systems
COLLABORATORS: Stantec Architecture + Ennead Architects
NoVo Foundation Headquarters.
Brooklyn, NY
LEED Silver Certification
The landscape design for the new headquarters of this global organization was guided by one of its central tenets, to “live in balance with one another, and the ecosystems that sustain us”. By re-using and re-purposing many parts of the former YMCA trade school building and site, and the addition of our own green initiatives, we created a sustainable design that achieves LEED Silver certification.
The building renovation incorporates several new landscapes spaces including the facade and streetscape, the entrance corridor, a sunken garden, a viewing garden, and two rooftop terraces. In all of these spaces, connections between the interior and exterior spaces create smooth transitions and connections between building and landscape. There were many opportunities to bring nature into the building – a skylight in the roof terrace that illuminates a custom green wall in the library, interior plantings throughout the rooms, floor to ceiling glass doors and windows that create visual and physical access to the gardens and the extension of paving from outside to inside.
We created spaces that encourage relaxation, peacefulness, and play and that encourage a positive relationship with our environment. Creating communal and contemplative spaces supports another of the NoVo foundation’s principles, to “encourage social and emotional learning”. There are small spaces that protect, such as a grotto, and more open social spaces, such as a cantilevered amphitheater, commissioned artworks, yoga swings, and a native rooftop meadow. The use of native and adaptive plantings and medicinal plants also support the client’s interest in promoting ecological and human health.
As a Women-owned Business Enterprise (WBE), JPLA was proud to create this landscape for a client who works to advance and support the work of women throughout the world.
CLIENT: NoVo Foundation
COLLABORATORS: Ryall Porter Sheridan Architects
Hauppauge, NY
The renovation of HBO’s Communications Center includes both interior and exterior landscapes for the employees and visitors of this satellite broadcasting facility.
The indoor atria serves as a dining room and communal gathering space, where two double-height green walls define the edges of the sunny interior garden. In the lower lounge below, built-in stone steps allow people to sit and view an arid garden of agave, barrel cactus and foxtail fern.
The exterior dining terrace was designed as a place where employees can enjoy their breaks and lunch-time with a view of nature, and accommodates for regular staff gatherings and barbecues. Locally-sourced locust wood was used for a pergola that provides shade and frames views of a garden landscape and the pitch pine forest surrounding the facility.
CLIENT: HBO
COLLABORATORS: TPG Architecture