Architecture, Not Architecture: The Designed Spaces of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

Description

This book showcases the work of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK), a Los Angeles-based architecture practice recognized for its creation of iconic, experiential environments that are reflective of culture and context and expressive of inclusivity and identity. Founded by John Friedman and Alice Kimm, JFAK is an American architecture firm in Los Angeles, California, USA that serves clients ranging from small nightclub operators and homeowners to developers, universities, and cities. JFAK's distinct formal landscapes are the result of an inquisitive design process that mines the possibilities and complexities of our contemporary, heterogeneous society. As such, the firm's wide-ranging body of work rejects adherence to diagram, at once represents and redefines the City of Los Angeles, and through its integration of technology and narrative captures a global zeitgeist. This book illustrates, through drawings, photos, and narratives not only of the work but of outside inspirations, the influences that form and define the underlying design logic of JFAK's projects.

A Pulitzer nominee in criticism who trained in architecture at Harvard, Joseph Giovannini's career has spanned three decades and two coasts. He has served as the architecture critic for New York Magazine and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and was long a staff writer on design and architecture for The New York Times. He has contributed to many other publications including The New Yorker, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Art in America, Art Forum, Architecture Magazine, Architect Magazine, Industrial Design Magazine, and Interior Design. A prominent figure in American architecture, he is activist critic with a record of discovering emerging talent for major mainstream publications and professional journals. He coined the term Deconstructivism, has written thousands of articles for periodicals, and has authored numerous essays for books and monographs. As a critic, he has won awards, grants, and honors from the Art World Magazine/Manufacturer's Hanover Trust for distinguished newspaper architectural criticism, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, the Los Angeles Chapter of the AIA and the AIA California Council. He received his B.A. in English at Yale University and an M.A. in French Language and Literature from Middlebury College for work done at La Sorbonne, Paris. David L. Ulin is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. The former book editor and book critic of The Los Angeles Times, he has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Foundation, and teaches at the University of Southern California. Most recently, he edited Didion: The 1960s and 70s and Didion: The 1980s and 90s for the Library of America. Eui-Sung Yi is a Partner at Morphosis Architects and Director of The Now Institute, a research center for urban strategy and sustainability. Through the lenses of dynamic cultural politics and unorthodox contexts, his professional work and research scholarship speculate on emerging Asian and global urbanism. He has been the principal designer of projects ranging from the new Korean Embassy in Tokyo to the tallest detached core tower in the world to off-the grid water and education stations in Haiti. He co-authored 100 Buildings and a 730-page visual tome called Haiti Now, both by The Now Institute. He is a Professor in the Master of Science in the Design of Cities program at SCI-Arc and formerly taught at UCLA and USC. He was co-organizer of the 2014 13th International DOCOMOMO Conference in Seoul, Korea. He received his B.Arch from Cornell University and his M.Arch from Harvard University. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, John Friedman holds undergraduate and graduate architecture degrees from MIT and Harvard University, respectively. He also earned a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University's Balliol College, where he was California's Newton Tatum Scholar. Before co-founding John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects, John worked for architectural design firms in the US and abroad, including the office of Pritzker Laureate Alvaro Siza in Porto, Portugal. John and his partner Alice Kimm were named Emerging Voices by The Architectural League of NY in 2004, and in 2007 John was elevated to the College of Fellows of the AIA. Currently, he is an appointed member of MIT's SA+P Visiting Committee as well as Harvard GSD's Alumni Council. He is also VP of the Board of Directors of Heidi Duckler Dance and Chair of the Board of Directors of Open Source Homelessness Initiative (OSHI). John has taught design studios at SCI-Arc, USC, and UT Austin. He lives in LA's Silverlake neighborhood with Alice and their three kids. JFAK co-founder Alice Kimm holds a B.A. in Economics from Cornell and an M.Arch. from Harvard and is a former Fulbright Scholar. She is a longtime educator who served as Director of Undergraduate Architecture at USC from 2010-2014. Alice was named a 2004 Emerging Voice by the Architectural League of New York alongside her partner and husband John Friedman, and was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2010. She was selected to deliver a TEDx talk by the Fulbright Association in 2015, is a frequent lecturer and panelist, and has been a guest on Southern California Public Radio, Charter Spectrum TV, and BBC Radio 4. With John she has formed OSHI - Open Source Homelessness Initiative - a nonprofit digital platform to accelerate innovation in the delivery of housing and facilities that serve those experiencing homelessness. Alice spends what little free time she has hanging out with John and their three children, reading fiction, writing, and playing squash.