Capitol at Chelsea

CAPITOL at CHELSEA ROOF GARDEN

AMENITY SUN TERRACE RENOVATION

As part of a comprehensive building renovation, HMWhite re-designed a rooftop amenity terrace to expand amenity offerings, improve exterior space utilization, and enhance the landscape experience. Working with the building’s structural framework and a strict budget, the design harnessed state-of-art living roof technologies to enable new expansive planting systems to transform sun terrace experience. A bold “built-in” landscape framework was introduced to spatially organize and define distinct social gathering areas. Continuity and flow of the terrace’s planting zones emerge as “connective tissue” that visually links a sequence of the “garden rooms.” Large expanses of planting zones addressed public assembly zoning limitations and create a sense of “false-ground’ that transports residents to more calming urban sensibilities. High alpine and indigenous coastal plant communities were used throughout to create landscape cohesion and a grander landscape scale.