I owe my career discovery to a placement test I took in seventh grade, indicating that I should be an architect. My subsequent research of the profession validated the results, and with parents in the construction industry, it was a natural career path. After graduating from Montana State University, I moved back to Southern California and joined the KFA team.
On my first day at the office seventeen years ago, a set of drawings for Santa Fe Lofts in Downtown LA was put on my desk. The project was the adaptive reuse of an under-utilized office building to live-work lofts. Main Street at the time was neglected and rundown, with homeless tents and evidence of drug use along the street. When I see the neighborhood now, the dramatic transformation illustrates how KFA reshapes Los Angeles. DTLA has become a destination, not just a 9 to 5 business center. It is exciting to know that all of the adaptive reuse projects I have worked on at KFA have been a major factor in the renaissance of downtown LA.
One of the most exciting projects I have worked on is the adaptive reuse of the Giannini Place Building at Olive and 7th Streets into the NoMad Hotel. The designer was renowned French architect Jacques Garcia, best known for his contemporary interiors of hotels and restaurants in Paris. The design, led by Jacques Garcia, is evocative of the NoMad in New York, but with a California flare. With special private rooms and larger communal spaces carefully arranged and programmed, we sought a sense of discovery for the hotel guest and the restaurant visitor alike. The food and beverage program for the NoMad brand is very strong, and consequently the restaurant spans three floors of the building. The original coffered ceiling sits atop the double height dining room and mezzanine and is entered through the restored ornate bronze entrance doors. In the cellar, the bank vault door is the striking gateway to the restaurant bathrooms. The carefully curated guest experience is classic and fun, modern and old-world, elegant and edgy, with historic features that punctuate a colorful design context. The NoMad has become a cornerstone of the new DTLA, breathing life into a previously underwhelming intersection and reestablishing it as a centerpiece of the City.
Since completing the NoMad this year, I have begun work on affordable housing. These projects are just as rewarding, but in a very different way, and I look forward to enhancing Los Angeles, one home at a time!
