Alexandra Barker

Alexandra Barker, FAIA LEED AP is currently the Interim Chair of the Graduate Architecture and Urban Design Department. Previously she acted as Assistant Chair from 2017-2023.  Prior to that, she coordinated the MARCH program since it began in 2001.

Barker teaches core and Directed Research studios and history/theory seminars in the GAUD and  directed the Pratt Young Scholars program from 2018-2022.  She has been the recipient of several national, regional, and institutional grants to develop architectural pedagogy that strengthens connections between practice and the academy, creates integrative course structures that combine building technology and design, and brings innovative approaches to design education to beginning designers in underserved communities.  This work has been presented in national and international conferences and papers. Barker and Catherine Ingraham received a grant from NCARB to create a seminar that integrates practice and the academy.  Barker and Nico Kienzl received a FIPSE/CSDS grant to integrate sustainable practices into the GAUD curriculum.

She is the principal of Barker Architecture Office (BAAO), an award-winning practice based in New York and founded in 2006.  BAAO brings intelligent, inventive design to a dynamic, multivalent world through work that engages the needs of a broad cross section of diverse inhabitants and sites.  BAAO’s portfolio includes institutional, educational and retail projects, ground-up private residences and interiors, as well as community engagement projects in the New York area, regionally, and internationally.  Recent projects include City Kids Education Center, Mi Casita Preschool and Cultural Center, and Maple Street Preschool.  Barker is also a board member of Design Advocates, a community of designers bringing their expertise to marginalized neighborhoods, and a board member of the Hart Island Project, which provides information, support, and storytelling for families of those buried in New York’s public cemetery.

B.A., Harvard University, magna cum laude;
M. Arch., Harvard University Graduate School of Design

James Templeton Kelly Award

Clifford Wong Award