Principals
Alice Kimm, FAIA
MArch (Harvard) | BA Economics (Cornell)
JFAK ArchitectsAlice was born in Chicago and spent her high school years in Seoul, South Korea. She landed in Los Angeles at the end of 1990 for what she thought would be one year (but has turned into 30) and co-founded JFAK six years later. A longtime educator, she served as Chair and then Director of Undergraduate Architecture at USC from 2010-2014, and continues to teach and lecture widely. Alice spends the little free time she has reading fiction, writing, playing squash, and roaming the city looking for its best pizza, Korean fried chicken, strawberry ice cream, and mapo tofu. She was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2010.
John Friedman, FAIA
MArch (Harvard) | MA Philosophy, Politics, Economics (Balliol College, Oxford) | BS Architecture (MIT)
JFAK ArchitectsJohn co-founded JFAK in 1996. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and went back and forth to MIT where he studied hard, played water polo harder (3-time NCAA D3 All-American), and observed the social upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s. He then travelled and read philosophy before trading in his Speedo for a road bike, his textbooks for sketchbooks, and The Beatles for Radiohead. One thing, though, has never changed – he still marries his love of work with a longstanding and never-ending quest for the perfect taco and the perfect beach. John was elevated to Fellowship in the American Institute of Architects in 2007.
