22nd Street Garden

22nd Street Garden reimagines a 1,675-square-foot, 180-year-old residential garden behind one of New York City’s historic brownstones as an intimate landscape rooted in the material history of Manhattan. The design preserves and reuses 100 percent of the garden’s historic schist paving, carefully documenting and rearranging the irregular slabs into a new composition that transforms the original material into the organizing framework of the garden. More than 100 individual pieces of historic stone were catalogued as part of the design process, allowing the existing landscape to become the source material for something distinctly contemporary. A layered woodland canopy and lush understory create an immersive garden room, while terraces, paths, stairs, and a site-specific sculpture by artist Matthew Ritchie are woven through the planting. The result balances preservation and invention, creating a contemporary urban garden that reveals the history, geology, and character of its New York City setting.