Residents of Hudson View East, the condominium on the southeast corner of Albany Street and South End Avenue have just seen their quality of life enhanced by several hundred square feet greenery. Earlier this year, after consulting several designers and landscape architects, the building’s board hired Amber Freda Home and Garden Design and Dion City Landscapes to spruce up their courtyard.
“I think all of the residents appreciated having a garden and felt it had great bones but the space was definitely not living up to its potential,” explains Hudson View East board member Marcia Shulman. “It was very exposed, with wire fencing. The lighting was inadequate. And the plants weren’t thriving.”
The result of the months-long renovation project, which was unveiled on June 9, is a lush, verdant oasis with its own waterfall, and Zen atmosphere of tranquility that verges on the miraculous, given that two parking garages and three major streets are a few steps beyond the walls of the cortile.
The outdoor equivalent of moveable “room dividers” can flexibly configure the space into multiple zones where more than one event can take place at single time. The design team, “came up with a plan that would utilize the space as a whole, while somehow being able to essentially create ‘rooms,’ so that a birthday, a barbecue, or a quiet could happen simultaneously,” says Ms. Shulman.