Judges for the 2019 Gold Nugget Awards twice named JFAK an Award of Merit winner in its annual competition, which honors architectural design and planning excellence and draws entries from throughout the United States and internationally. JFAK earned Merit awards for AIRE Santa Monica and Casa Namorada, which respectively represent multi-family and single-family residential categories.

Chosen from the elite pool of Merit Award winners, Grand Awards will be announced on May 31 as a feature highlight of PCBC®, the nation’s largest regional conference and trade show for the real estate development field. “Gold Nugget Award winners reflect our industry’s best, brightest, and most innovative architects, planners, and builder/developers,” said Judging Chairman and Gold Nugget ceremonies administrator Lisa Parrish. “We applaud them all, and we forward to our May 31 celebration of Merit and Grand Award winners.”

Now in its 56th year, GNA is the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind in the nation. It honors design and planning achievements in community and home design, green-built housing, site planning, commercial, retail, mixed-use development, and specialty housing categories. Winners this year were chosen from over 600 entries from around the world.

Read more about the awards program and the other winners in PCBC’s 56th Annual Gold Nugget Awards program on PCBC’s website, at www.pcbc.com.

We’re happy to share that JFAK has been selected as the Executive Architect for University of California, San Diego’s Main Gymnasium and Natatorium project renovation and expansion. Originally completed in 1968, the buildings are excellent examples of Mid-century Modern Architecture, and a portion of the buildings’ facade is historically protected. The project will include approximately 64,300 SF of renovation, restoration, and seismic retrofit, and an approximately 10,000 SF addition. It is intended to be certified LEED Silver at minimum. We’re excited to work with the UCSD community to breathe new life into this pair of iconic buildings.

JFAK was named one of the top 50 firms shaping the Los Angeles skyline by Interior Design Magazine in this year’s PowerGridLA ranking. The overall ranking, based on all applicable information available at the time, as interpreted by Interior Design, is an evaluation of the top 50 firms based on their total square footage of development projects completed in the past 18 months combined with ones the firms are currently work­ing on. The survey requested information on firms’ devel­opment projects completed in the past 18 months and current on-the-boards development projects within downtown L.A., Arts District, Culver City, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Long Beach, and Pasadena. The data was compiled and analyzed by the Interior Design market research staff in New York, led by Wing Leung, research director. Read more at interiordesign.com

California State University Long Beach awarded a new 7,000 SF alumni center to John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects. The structure will be designed to meet LEED Silver and Net-Zero Energy standards, and project process is expected to start in January 2019.