Aviation Garden, the community hub at the heart of the Baisley Pond Park Residences, adaptively reuses the existing poolhouse structure and retrofits its mechanical systems to support year-round planting and human comfort. The systems were electrified and paired with new rooftop solar arrays, aligning environmental performance with long-term operational resilience.
Baisley Pond Park Residences includes 318 permanently affordable apartments for low-income and formerly homeless New Yorkers and represents New York City’s first hotel-to-residential conversion under the Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA).
Beyond housing, the project offers residents access to classroom space, on-site social services, play areas, and community hubs, positioning design as an active participant in social support systems rather than a passive backdrop.
The design of Aviation Garden (situated a half mile from John F. Kennedy International Airport) draws from the cultural and material language of flight—movement, optimism, and exploration—to create an interior landscape that merges food production and social space with restorative environments.
OSD’s scope includes 2,600 square feet of community space organized as a sequence of programmed rooms, all set within lush planting. The Helipad Lounge provides seating, working, and social alcoves, while the Propeller Farm functions as an indoor urban farm that supports year-round food cultivation by residents. The garden introduces biophilia, daylight, and collective space to form a calm and productive oasis in the heart of New York City.
The material palette and graphic language draw inspiration from JFK’s aviation history: runway striping, riveted aluminum planters evocative of TWA, curving concrete that recalls Saarinen’s sweeping forms, and a 120-foot-long mural references posters that recall the excitement of the early days of flight.
Planting is attractive yet functional for human health. Common building materials, especially those found in old structures such as paints, adhesives, varnishes, carpets, composite wood, and insulation emit chemicals that negatively impact human health. Based on research through NASA, the plant palette is selected to absorb and filter the most common chemicals such as VOCs, thereby bringing an increase in human health and fresh air.
“Made possible by adaptive reuse, and inspired by travel, the design is about new beginnings, creating a sense of hope and opportunity for buildings and the people who inhabit them,” said Simon David, Founding Principal and Creative Director of OSD.
Aviation Garden is a new model of adaptive reuse and biophilic design, demonstrating how buildings of the past can build lives of the future. Through creativity and sustainable design, existing environments can be retooled to support long-term habitation, ecological performance, and collective living.
Aviation Garden at Baisley Pond Park Residences
Location: South Jamaica, Queens, New York, USA
Landscape Architect: OSD
Team: Simon David, Alex Heid, Vignir Eythorsson, Ezra Royce, Scott Kelly, Kiran Mohanty, Fan Wu
Collaborators: Aufgang Architects, Skyline
Client: Slate Property Group, RiseBoro Community Partnership