Ritz-Carlton Terrace, Washington D.C.

The terrace of the same private residence, and when we started it was completely empty. Bare ground, a view, and no power of any kind. There is something clarifying about a space with nothing in it, because you cannot lean on what is already there and every single element has to be argued for. Electricity came first. Before a chair was chosen or a plant was placed, we ran power out to the terrace, because everything the clients wanted to do with the space depended upon it. Outdoor rooms fail far more often for want of infrastructure than for want of good furniture.

Lighting, heating, the outdoor kitchen and the automated umbrellas all trace back to that first unglamorous decision. The furniture was upholstered in couture outdoor fabrics that hold their hand and color through weather, sunlight and spills. The umbrellas are automated and heated, which turns a terrace from a summer space into one the clients use for most of the year. An outdoor kitchen with a custom electric grill anchors one end, and a planted garden with its own lighting scheme softens the hard edges of the building.

The brief throughout was entertaining, so the terrace had to work for a crowd standing with glasses in hand and for two people on a quiet evening, which are very different problems in the same square footage. I think about this project constantly on Lake Murray, where a terrace, a porch or a dock has to earn its keep the same way.