This wrap-around roof garden in the West Village features a 15’x30′ custom-built planter made out of red cedar and filled with a lush mix of evergreens and flowers. Plantings include boxwoods, spiral junipers, alberta spruces, and gold mop cypresses. The challenges we faced in the design of this 6th floor pre-war rooftop garden were weight restrictions of 35 pounds per square foot and no elevator in the building.

We designed around the weight restrictions by using lightweight potting soil, rather than heavy garden soil, and putting a false bottom inside the planters to reduce total soil volume.Hundreds of bags of potting soil, dozens of plants, the furniture, and all of the wood materials that went into the deck and planters had to be carried up five flights of stairs by hand. Who needs a gym membership when you’ve got roof gardens to install?!