Brooklyn, NY
Winner of the 2011 ASLA New York Chapter Merit Award 2011
This 1,200 sf garden in Brooklyn was created as a place to play. The family has three small children and the garden is a place where the ground feels organic and fluid, as it rolls and pitches around one-ton boulders into a central swale. A water source near the back of the garden provides a water display and when the swale is blocked, will create a shallow pool for summer fun. A custom hanging bench provides a place to sit and to swing. The garden’s mosaic paving of cut-stone marble is good for wheels, easy to maintain, and wonderful to be viewed from the four levels of the house.
Client: Undisclosed
The Chateau Garden is a historic “garden-city” co-op development built in the early 1920s in Jackson Heights, Queens. Little investment in the site’s aging paths and drains had resulted in flooding and damage to foundations. Additionally the Mature American Elms have transformed Chateau’s character from a sunny formal garden to a shady urban woodland. JPLA’s renovation project focuses on replacing hardscape with accessible permeable paths and installing green infrastructure reservoirs to mitigate drainage issues. The resulting expanded path network and planting design responds to the change of conditions in its 100 year history while respecting the original character of the design.
Client: The Chateau Garden Club
Team: RAFT, Environmental Design Dynamics (EDD) (civil engineer)
NYCHA Housing Baychester
Bronx, NY
Our Design approach aims to enrich the unique character and address the specific needs of the Baychester residential property. The residents living in this Bronx housing development have created strong bonds of community. The landscape design will give these communities a place to celebrate these bonds and to form new ones, to gather, to interact, to be active and to restore.
The design for all sites within Baychester will secure the perimeters, and open up the sites’ interiors for residents to enjoy their landscapes. New and enhanced amenities will give residents places to be active as well as places that allow them to simply sit, watch others, and enjoy the tranquility of nature. Activating spaces for people helps to generate a safe and supported environment.
Coherent designs that are tailored to people’s needs and their ways of living will cultivate a sense of ownership and care for the space. This helps to builds healthy and meaningful bonds between people and their environment that are sustainable for the long term.
A design language of rounded organic forms softens the spaces within the site and invites a fluid circulation throughout the landscape. Rather than being separated by fences and walls, a variety of flexible and programmed spaces are integrated into the landscape. Amenities include children’s playgrounds, water play, vegetable gardens, adult fitness areas, as well as picnic tables, benches and community gathering spaces.
The landscape design builds upon adjacencies to communal interior spaces, such as a Laundry Room. While doing laundry, residents can sit outdoors at picnic tables and watch their children playing in the playground.
CLIENT:
COLLABORATORS:
New York, NY
Our proposed renovation in response to the RAD RFP for this NYCHA housing development in the Bronx provides a central common plaza space that is enriching for all ages. This open space will become a dynamic core of the residential community and offers a range of ways to come together, to engage in activities, to interact with neighbors and to restore.
The design opens up the site, removing existing barriers to entry and makes use of the dramatic elevation changes across the site to structure a landscape that is open and accessible with an interplay between spaces. A design language of rounded organic forms softens the space within the building’s envelope and invites a fluid circulation throughout the space and access to a variety of flexible and programmed spaces. Amenities include children’s playgrounds, water play, vegetable gardens, adult fitness areas, as well as picnic tables, benches and community gathering spaces.
CLIENT: BFC Partners, NYCHA
COLLABORATORS: GF55 Partners, Selfhelp
NYCHA RAD Proposal
BUSHWICK Housing Campus
Brooklyn, NY
The proposed renovation of buildings and open spaces in this NYCHA housing development aims to support community vitality, sustainability and active living for the residents and the greater Bushwick neighborhood. Our design proposal creates a dynamic campus landscape that fosters social interaction, self-directed play, physical activities, and the exploration of nature.
The landscape will offer a mix of experiences including open mounded lawns, playgrounds, community gardens, as well as places to host small events, to exercise, and to retreat from the surrounding city. Shaped by a language of organic forms, the open space will be transformed into a pastoral landscape that draws visitors through it, revealing amenities and places to sit and enjoy sensory experiences of nature.
Low and open planting located along the building creates privacy for adjacent apartment units and brings a view of nature into residents’ homes. Large areas will be planted with native or adaptive plant species, reducing runoff, and attracting birds, butterflies, and other pollinators.
CLIENT: BFC Partners, NYCHA
COLLABORATORS: GF55 Partners, Riseboro
NYCHA Housing Murphy
Bronx, NY
Our Design approach aims to enrich the unique character and address the specific needs of the Murphy residential property. The residents living in this Bronx housing development have created strong bonds of community. The landscape design will give these communities a place to celebrate these bonds and to form new ones, to gather, to interact, to be active and to restore.
The design for all sites within Murphy will secure the perimeters, and open up the sites’ interiors for residents to enjoy their landscapes. New and enhanced amenities will give residents places to be active as well as places that allow them to simply sit, watch others, and enjoy the tranquility of nature. Activating spaces for people helps to generate a safe and supported environment.
Coherent designs that are tailored to people’s needs and their ways of living will cultivate a sense of ownership and care for the space. This helps to builds healthy and meaningful bonds between people and their environment that are sustainable for the long term.
A design language of rounded organic forms softens the spaces within the site and invites a fluid circulation throughout the landscape. Rather than being separated by fences and walls, a variety of flexible and programmed spaces are integrated into the landscape. Amenities include children’s playgrounds, water play, vegetable gardens, adult fitness areas, as well as picnic tables, benches and community gathering spaces.
The landscape design builds upon adjacencies to communal interior spaces, such as a Community Center. A flexible events and gathering space is located adjacent
to the Murphy Community Center. The community center is a resource for the building residents that can offer a variety of beneficial programming that tie into the landscape. Our community partner will develop and manage programming here. Compatible uses may include a lending library, after-school tutoring program, senior programming, or a children’s theater.
NYCHA HOUSING PORTFOLIO
Brooklyn, NY
The Saratoga Square landscape serves the residents of its 251 apartments as well as the Community Senior Center located on the ground floor. In the redesign for this public housing site, JPLA had two main strategies: to remove existing physical and visual barriers to access, and to create an open landscape with a variety of spaces within. The design creates a clear hierarchy of accessible entrances, secure boundaries around the site, and an open campus that allows free movement and access to active and quiet spaces. A significant part of the design focuses on the main Saratoga Avenue entrance, where a monumental stair and accessible ramps lead to terraces adjacent to this building entrance. Here, one can sit and gather with neighbors and look out to Saratoga Park across the street. The landscape for the site includes extensive native and adaptive planting, a mix of paving, seating areas, the preservation of a mature bosque of Linden trees, raised community garden beds, and an interior garden courtyard. With new floor to ceiling windows and access points on the courtyard, the interior courtyard is a peaceful place to gather for both the residents and members of the Community Senior Center. A simple graphic of organic-shaped planting beds surrounded by paving is a beautiful sight to view from the apartments on floors above.
CLIENT: Triborough Preservation LLC
COLLABORATORS: OCV Architects, GDS NY
New York, NY
JPLA designed this 8,000 sf courtyard at the heart of a new hotel as part of a 22 story mixed use development in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
The courtyard landscape encompasses a variety of gathering spaces including an outdoor dining area for the hotel’s restaurant, a flexible space for lounging, games and special events, and an area for casual dining with food service from an airstream trailer. Serpentine Corten steel planter walls form a lush green spine that weaves through the center of the courtyard and gives definition to these spaces. The curvilinear planting walls integrate the courtyards ramp, monumental steps and its three terrace levels which occur above the building cellar’s stepped slab. The planters provide soil depth for a variety of low maintenance, shade tolerant plantings including native dogwood and sweetbay magnolia trees, azaleas, sedges and evergreen groundcovers. Custom hardwood benches and banquette seating provide sheltered places to sit and dine beneath the verdant planting.
CLIENT: Youngwoo & Associates
DESIGN ARCHITECT: MVRDV
EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT OF RECORD: Stonehill Taylor
AREA: 8000 SF
STATUS: Completed Fall 2022
NYCHA HOUSING PORTFOLIO
New York, NY
The landscape for Millbank Frawley serves the residents of its 80 apartment units. The primary design goals were to open up the space and enrich the quality of the exterior landscape. JPLA achieved this by removing fences and walls that limited circulation, giving way to a central pathway with lush plantings, continuous seat walls and access to quiet and active spaces. The new landscape includes programmed spaces such as a playground, adult fitness area, and community gardens, and flexible spaces such as a seating area under decorative lighting. A verdant and sustainable landscape was created using a materials palette of native and adaptive plantings and permeable paving. The landscape is a beautiful, safe, open court that offers enrichment for residents of all ages.
CLIENT: Triborough Preservation LLC
COLLABORATORS: OCV Architects, GDS NY
INGERSOLL SENIOR HOUSING
Brooklyn, NY
Set within NYCHA Ingersoll Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, an affordable senior housing development for seniors includes three rooftop spaces and two groundfloor entrance gardens. The roof terraces are amenities for residents, with lush planting and dining areas. The entrances have verdant gardens that welcome residents and visitors, and provide a pleasing view for passersby on the busy commercial thoroughfare of Myrtle Avenue.
CLIENT: BFC Partners
COLLABORATORS: Marvel Architects