Founded in 2007 and led by its principal Alexandra Barker, BAAO works across sectors to probe the division between public and private space. At the heart of the practice is a long-term investigation into how materials, structures, and systems inform, reshape, and blur this distinction. BAAO principal, Alexandra Barker, is currently an associate professor and the coordinator of the MArch programme at the Graduate Architecture and Urban Design Department (GAUD) in the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, New York, where she has taught since 2001.