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What are KFA founding partners Barbara Flammang, AIA and Wade Killefer, FAIA doing these days?

In 2014, Barbara Flammang, AIA and KFA were selected to be the executive architect for the new Los Angeles LGBT Center located at the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and McCadden Place. The Los Angeles LGBT Center campus will serve as the new administrative headquarters for the Center, and include new senior and youth centers, 98 units of affordable housing for seniors, 100 beds for homeless youth, 26 units of permanent supportive housing for young people, ground floor retail space, and two levels of subterranean parking.

The Center has been part of the Los Angeles community since 1969, caring for, championing, and celebrating individuals and families in Southern California and beyond. Today, the Center serves more people in the LGBT community than any other organization in the world, offering programs, services and global advocacy in health, social services and housing, culture and education, leadership and advocacy.

Barbara is the partner-in-charge for the design and construction of the Center’s new Anita May Rosenstein Campus  which is slated for completion in spring of 2019.

KFA has been active in designing permanent supportive housing projects in the Greater Los Angeles area since the late 1980s and is currently in design and construction phases for 18 such projects with a projected total of 1,235 residential units. While these efforts represent a significant contribution to housing the homeless in LA, the homeless population continues to grow, and LA City and County officials are looking for further alternatives and solutions.

Wade Killefer, FAIA  is currently working on a number of homeless housing initiatives with the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services. KFA is exploring modular and container-built structures for Recuperative Housing on the County/USC campus. Also on that campus, KFA is looking at repurposing the old General Hospital to provide 726 units of affordable housing. Additionally, empty LA County land could be sites for Wellness Villages, built of prefabricated buildings where homeless individuals could stay in service-rich environments until they can move into Permanent Supportive Housing.

With the housing crisis at hand, KFA continues to reshape L.A., building great places where people flourish.

KFA is full of individuals who have talents that go beyond architecture. Recently, KFA’s Jeff DeWitt starred as the lead in West Side Story in Simi Valley and at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. Jeff came to KFA via the University of Michigan’s externship program and has been a full-time member of our team for the past three years.

About a year ago, Jeff started going to community theater auditions. In his first show, The Fantastiks at Theatre Palisades, he played the Mute! He then starred in a Christmas comedy called In-laws, Outlaws, and Other People (That Should be Shot) where he played a Goth punk. Soon after Jeff decided to audition for West Side Story, and to his surprise, he was cast as Tony, a lead role.

Jeff has always liked music, beginning when he sang the lead in his kindergarten’s musical. He sang in his high school choir and musicals, “the highlight of his high school years.” After he joined KFA and moved to L.A., he decided to try to get back into the amateur musicals he had always enjoyed.

Currently, Jeff is starring in a British murder mystery called Write Me a Murder at Theatre Palisades that opened on June 8th and runs through July 15th.