The Rooftop, New York

The brief was for a rooftop that functioned as a room — not a deck with furniture, but a designed outdoor space that had the spatial logic of an interior. We divided the terrace into three zones using a steel pergola structure: a sheltered area beneath, an open paving field in the centre, and a planted border that separates the building edge from the sky.

The planting is deliberate — ornamental grasses and seasonal shrubs that move in the wind and change with the year. The city becomes the fifth elevation. The architecture earns its relationship to the skyline by not competing with it.