Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK) cofounder, John Friedman, holds undergraduate and graduate architecture degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, respectively.  He also earned a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, where he was California’s Newton Tatum Scholar.  

Before he co-founded John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects in 1996, John worked for a variety of architectural design firms in the US and abroad, including the office of Pritzker Laureate Alvaro Siza, in Porto, Portugal, as well as Skidmore Owings and Merrill, in San Francisco.

As a Principal of John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects, John has designed award-winning projects of many types and sizes in Los Angeles, New York, and South Korea.  He has taught design studios at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and the University of Southern California, where he and Alice Kimm were the Spring 2006 Jon Jerde Visiting Professors in Architecture.  

John and his partner Alice Kimm were named Emerging Voices by The Architectural League of NY in 2004. In 2007, John was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects.  He also served on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2009.  

He lives in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles with his wife and their three children.