St. John's Bread and Life
St. John’s Bread and Life is a soup kitchen and community resource center in New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood that provides daily meals, literacy classes, job placement programs, legal assistance and related services to its Brooklyn and Queens clients.
Community Resource Center
The main dining room ceiling is lit with over-scaled custom light fixtures that negotiate an irregular and distinctive column grid and are more affordable than most off-the-shelf options
Working within a tightly constrained budget, the old mattress factory was converted into a series of unique spaces that take advantage of the existing structure’s eccentricities. An old stair shaft was transformed into a staff lounge.
An oversized skylight and double height space bring light to the center of the ground floor.
The sanctuary space has exposed brick walls and a wood seating area that was made from reclaimed wood joists removed when the double-height space was created.
- Location
- Brooklyn, New York
- Client
- St. John's Bread and Life
- Typology
- Preservation & Reuse, Public, Institutional
- Size
- 20,000 SF SF
- Design Team
- Jonathan Marvel, Lissa So, Guido Hartray, Jenny Wu
- Consultants
- Silman, Eng Engineering, Kitchen Consultants
- Awards
- AIA NY State Award of Excellence
- Photography Credits
- ©David Sundberg/ESTO
