One River Terrace, Battery Park City

JHLA (including Judith Heintz, as Principal in Charge, and Diana Drake, Project Manager) took on the challenge of designing rooftop landscapes for One River Terrace, a LEED Gold residential building in Battery Park City. Varied green roofs designed for the building’s second floor terrace, low-rise and high rise roofs differentiate semi-private, private, and inaccessible outdoor spaces for the building. The design’s response to these varying degrees of accessibility created spaces for both viewing and inhabiting. As a part of the building’s LEED status, the green roofs, which cover 75% of the roofs’ surface, are designed to capture and reuse storm water.

On the private terraces of the mid-rise buildings, both paving and planting were installed over a continuous green-roof substrate so that all storm water that fell in these areas was captured for reuse as gray water both inside and outside the building. The conditions of the private terraces on the upper roofs, similar to the seaside, with drying winds, full sun, extreme temperatures and high mineral, fast-draining soil, led to selecting plants typically found on New York coastlines.

The second floor terrace pictured here is sheltered and shady. Taking cues from the landscape at grade, one story below, (designed by others), JHLA designed planters that mimicked its “random,” tossed stone slabs. The arrangement of the slab planters and low curbed plantings creates a variety of spaces for tables, chairs and benches. Bright green grasses and lush plantings are introduced to enliven the space.

Project Team
Architects: Polshek Partnership (exterior), Ismael Leyva Architects (layouts), Rockwell Group (Interiors)
Landscape Architects: JHLA (Judith Heintz, Diana Drake)
Civil Engineers: Langan

Photo credit: Susan Kaplan