Life before the pandemic sure was hectic, wasn’t it? My schedule was packed and our office was bursting, with 20 people, including six full-time interior designers. It was a battle to just contain everyone’s stuff. But we had a lot of fun—brainstorming new designs or celebrating whenever somebody got their architecture license. And then on March 15, as the city shut down, we gathered around the conference table and I told everyone to take their workstation home. We have yet to all reunite in one room. (Though we did meet for a late-summer picnic in Prospect Park.)
Home is where my practice started. For many years, the business operated out of the fourth floor of my Clinton Hill town house, where my son would run around naked after baths and the cat would lie across our drawings. It was a happy time.But I had five architects crammed into tight quarters, so six years ago I set out in search of more space and light, with a classic New York industrial vibe in mind. After looking all over Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, we landed at a former mattress factory in Gowanus, taking over a portion of what had been Pace Prints. In a matter of weeks, we painted the walls white, installed floor outlets, added fluorescent lighting in just the right color temperature, and laid out long desks between the columns. The move was a great change.
My own workstation was in front of two padlocked freight elevator doors, until one day we got up the nerve and cut the chain. Peering up and down the abandoned shaft, we discovered a cavernous space full of old equipment, and a murky skylight overhead. With the permission of our kind landlord, we cleared the debris, installing a floor level to our office, a wooden mezzanine, and a web of netting for reclining. And so that shaft became my office, with three stories of sunshine and plants above my head—not to mention colleagues. One of our architects would often take a nap up there. People lounged beneath the sky. And now, during the pandemic, my son climbs up to do his homework after school. It’s very much a shared room.
Back in March, after most of the team had gone home, some colleagues and I gathered in the space, behind those original metal doors, to reflect on the uncertainty of the months ahead.
I remember talking about hope, how work could be a positive part of one’s life. I shed a tear, for sure. But work has been exactly that, an exercise in collaboration and creativity, something to keep us busy. We’re still doing the job and doing it well—with exciting new projects and a lot less paper, now that we all use iPads. And we’ve been going into the office, albeit in smaller teams. Through it all, people continue to be lovely people, more patient even, and more appreciative of the design process. I think, maybe, it’s a Brooklyn thing. —As told to Sam Cochran
