The work of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK) begins with the premise that architecture has the power to dramatically affect people’s lives. JFAK exploits this potential to create new types of social spaces that encourage creative interaction, sustain the environment, and catalyze positive change for their users and their surrounding communities.

JFAK’s distinct formal landscapes are the result of an inquisitive design process that mines the possibilities and complexities of our contemporary, heterogeneous society. Every JFAK project is committed to expressing the aspirations and identity of the entity it represents through productive dialogue with its physical and cultural surroundings. Light-filled interior spaces are organized to create meaningful adjacencies and unexpected views, as well as to encourage a range of activities – from individual contemplation to communal interaction and creative teamwork.

The size, type, or budget of a project is not important to JFAK. Rather, the firm takes on projects that involve a meaningful design challenge and the promise of developing an innovative solution. This endeavor often involves the utilization of new types of performative materials in concert with the most current design software and fabrication technologies. For JFAK, new digital techniques are not an end in themselves, but tools to explore new types of efficiencies, forms, spaces, and branding possibilities.

As a matter of ethical and environmental urgency, JFAK applies the full range of sustainable strategies, whether they involve the most sophisticated engineering systems, simple passive techniques, or the choice of the most responsible materials. Casting its net as wide as possible, JFAK engages in collaborations with an ever expanding list of artists, engineers, scientists, builders, and other specialists. Whether these individuals are JFAK clients, consultants, or advisers, they become partners in a shared vision, one of creating integrated and sustainable environments that inspire their users and better their lives.