{"id":188634,"date":"2021-10-02T23:32:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-03T03:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_news&p=188634"},"modified":"2022-11-14T11:59:08","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T16:59:08","slug":"brooklyn-architect-alexandra-barker-helps-new-yorkers-endure-pivot-and-adapt-to-pandemic-realities","status":"publish","type":"id_news","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/designwire\/brooklyn-architect-alexandra-barker-helps-new-yorkers-endure-pivot-and-adapt-to-pandemic-realities\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Architect Alexandra Barker Helps New Yorkers Endure, Pivot, and Adapt to Pandemic Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Project: City Kids\nArchitect: BAAO\nLocation: Brooklyn, NY.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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October 2, 2021<\/p>\n\n

Words:\u00a0<\/span>Eric Mutrie<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Photography:\u00a0<\/span>Lesley Unruh<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Brooklyn Architect Alexandra Barker Helps New Yorkers Endure, Pivot, and Adapt to Pandemic Realities<\/h1>\n\n\n
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Alexandra Barker in a Fifth Avenue penthouse she designed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Over the past 18 months, life as we know it has moved to an ever-fluctuating model. Shops shift their inventory between indoors and out, students shuffle between learning at school and at home, and social gatherings are as likely to occur in parks as in places of residence.<\/p>\n\n\n

For Brooklyn-based architect Alexandra Barker, who is also the assistant chair\u00adperson of the graduate architecture and urban design program at Pratt Institute, these changes have made for fruitful\u2014and not entirely unfamiliar\u2014design challenges. Her firm, Barker Associates Architecture Office<\/a>, has long embraced hybrid thinking, overlapping different scales and disciplines to develop flexible solutions that address multiple needs simultaneously. Take, for instance, the cat staircase she thoughtfully incorporated in a Brooklyn row house\u2019s built-in bookcase.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

With her ongoing community work, Barker considers an even broader range of experiences. \u201cThe pandemic has made me more aware of my surroundings, and how small things can have a big impact,\u201d she says. City Kids, a recently completed Williamsburg preschool with COVID-friendly ventilation and a warm, domestic feel, is playfully scaled down to toddler proportions, yet also comfortably accom\u00admodates older students for after-school programming. Meanwhile, as part of Design Advocates<\/a>, a collective dedicated to pro-bono initiatives, Barker is helping Washington Heights businesses to embrace pandemic-savvy outdoor retail strategies and working on open-air learning spaces for Concourse House, a transitional housing shelter in the Bronx. Evidently, Barker\u2019s knack for operating at the intersection of various ideas is exactly the approach that 2021 calls for. She tells us more.<\/p>\n\n\n

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City Kids preschool in Williamsburg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Interior Design: How does City Kids rethink preschools for the COVID era?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

Alexandra Barker: When construction paused at the beginning of the pandemic, we made some changes to address needs that were becoming clear: adding operable windows, increasing circulation flow, and finding ways to either contain or expand connections between rooms. Those adjustments have been integral to keeping the school open.<\/p>\n\n\n

ID: The half-height walls and other low elements seem designed with a toddler\u2019s perspective in mind.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

AB: At 5 feet, 4 inches tall, I\u2019m sensitive to things that are not the right height for me and always thinking about where a space becomes problematic because of the scale. Anytime something is conceived to work specifically for a certain population, it turns the design into more of a background element by helping people do their job. In this case, the job is learning and gaining confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The double-height entryway of City Kids preschool in Williamsburg, its ceiling painted to evoke the night sky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

ID: How did you arrive at the idea for the double-height lobby space, which visually links the preschool to the after-school community spaces upstairs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

AB: It\u2019s sort of an indoor-outdoor experience. I thought of it like an Italian piazza, with multiple apertures looking into a central courtyard and borrowing its light. The ceiling\u2014painted a dark blue-green, with glowing white pendant fixtures\u2014is like an artificial sky.<\/p>\n\n\n