In 1953, he built one of his most significant designs, the Rose Residence (now the James Rose Center for Landscape Architectural Research and Design) in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Rose conceived of the design while stationed in Okinawa, Japan during World War II. The completed landscape was later published in the December 1954 issue of Progressive Architecture, juxtaposed with the design for a traditional Japanese house built in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It clearly expresses Rose's spatial discipline, the fusion between indoor and outdoor space, and his belief that modern design must be flexible enough to allow for changes in the environment, as well as in the lives of its users.